Forgotten
by EvilMindedZ
Summary: There's a market run that Kanan and Ezra go on. On the run, Ezra bumps into an old friend. Shortly after, his friend is injured in an explosion. They pick him up and treat him, where they find quite a few things out. Sadly, this is only the beginning. Bad things happen. Lives are lost. Many, many lives. Who of the crew will survive?
1. Suicide

*****I'm baaack! And more evil than ever, so you'd better have some tissues ready! I hope you're not in a public place! Followers, I am SO sorry I haven't been on here in so long! I have work, college, AND my computer broke! I will be updating my two other stories as well! Enjoy this third one!*****

Ezra looked in the mirror, shaking his head as tears fell off his chin. How wrong it had gone. How wrong it had all gone. And now one of their own was dead. That was what hurt worse than anything. It had been because of him. Because of him, a rebel was dead. Because of him, the Rebellion grieved. Shadow darkened his face further, and he couldn't bear to look in the mirror anymore. He sank to the ground, crawling over to the wall. He curled up and laid his head against it, letting himself freely weep.

Kanan's Force signature instantly responded.

Ezra would have to make this fast, faster than he had thought. _Karabast._ He swore, feeling his heart ache.

Kanan was sending out waves of calm and caring, but Ezra fiercely battered them away, driving desolation and pain towards him.

 _Leave me alone or you'll be sorry!_ Ezra threatened.

 _No! No way I'm leaving you alone, especially after what happened. Especially after how you're feeling._

 _I said leave me alone Kanan!_

 _No! The Force has cut me a path anyway!_ Kanan paused. _You're_ crying _! Ezra…!_ The teen could hear his master's pity, worry, in his voice. He hated it.

"Leave me _alone_!" He screamed. Took a breath. He knew that he would have to make it fast now.

Ezra had always been a good pickpocket. He had really known what he would do ever since it happened, ever since they had been leaving the facility. More tears ran down his face as he pulled the syringe out of his back pocket. The fluid inside shone in the light. He was sobbing so bad that his chest hurt, and his hand was unsteady.

Ezra rolled up his sleeve, feeling his master coming closer to him.

 _I'm sorry Kanan._ He allowed that at least to seep through the Force.

 _Kid whatever you're doing_ stop _, for Force sake's kid, please. Ezra. I care too much about you to lose you. What in the Galaxies is going on?_ Kanan was panicked.

Ezra shut his mind. He couldn't take his master's pain as well as his own. It was too much.

His inner voice told him to do it. Kanan desperately tried to contact him, the Force screaming at him that Ezra was in danger, that he needed to get inside of his mind.

He pushed the needle through the skin of his arm, feeling the flesh bend and snap beneath the pressure. He pushed the end of the syringe down, feeling the gush of fluid into his arm.

The Force left him. Kanan couldn't track him now. Closing his eyes, he sighed painfully. A few more tears crept down his face and he sighed again. _I'm gonna have to find another place._ Even though the connection between master and padawan was lost, Ezra still knew that his master was close. Too close.

He opened the door, dropping the syringe to the ground. His arm bled slightly, a tear of blood running down to his wrist before it even began to clot. Not that it mattered. Not that anything would matter soon. Bedroom? No, Zeb would be sure to find him. Fresher? No, he had just gone in there. Cockpit? And be caught by Hera? Vents? They wouldn't be able to get to him. He decided to go to the supply closet. It was a walk-in with a space small enough for only him to fit into where two shelves didn't quite connect.

There would do.

Kanan would raise the alarm soon, and that would most likely lead to Chop being sent out to find him.

Ezra preferred that it was Chopper who found him first.

If this didn't work, Ezra would never be able to look at Kanan again. As he walked, he tried to think of a happy memory of Kanan, one where Kanan was genuinely happy. His mind drew a blank. If he wasn't yelling at one of them, he was worrying about the lives of everyone else in the Galaxy, or angry about deaths that imperialists had caused, or a neutral face when meditating. Had Kanan ever really been happy?

Lately the answer seemed to be no, with how many civilian loses they were facing. With how close they had gotten so many times. With the stress of the ship being attacked and almost scrapped, with Zeb losing a hand, with the one good lead they'd had in months from one good ally in this whole mess.

With Ezra killing his friend.

The boy's heart ached again, and he was sick to his stomach. It felt weird not being able to connect to the Force, but it didn't matter. The Force had never really helped him anyway. He sighed and almost started crying, but this time, instead of tears, his eyes went dead. He was numb inside. He wanted to be numb outside, too.

Ezra opened the door of the supply closet, turned around, and locked it behind him. It was never locked, so it would be a dead give away, but it wouldn't matter at that point. He looked around him then, at the mass of mops and boxes and med bay supplies and cooking supplies and spare parts. All scraps that somehow kept the ship together. All misfit, cast out things, that would most likely never be used again until the last thing wore out.

He fit right in.

The teen saw the space where only he fit, and lowered himself into it like it was his coffin. With a blank mind, with an empty chest, with deadweight limbs. He closed his eyes, and was assaulted with the picture of the dead boy, looking up into his eyes. He opened his again, wanting to be rid of the image. Death was contagious, and he had caught the disease.

He wasn't willing to fight it.

Ezra leaned his head against the durasteel wall, not wanting to close his eyes again. He shifted his leg until he had access to what he had always kept in his pocket: a sharpened piece of stone, forged by him one night on the streets as a kid, for protection. It felt heavy in his hand now. But not as heavy as his heart. He knew it worked, he'd had to use it a couple of times against robbers, before he had acquired actual weapons. Ezra pressed it to his inner left wrist, hissing and cringing in pain. His fist tightened, and a sob forced its way out between his teeth. But it was a sob of sorrow, of guilt, not of pain.

The rock plunged deeper.

He twisted it in an almost circle for good measure before pulling it out. He'd had cuts worse than that, he'd have to do better. Going for the artery in his arm this time, he started at the wound and then dragged it upward, trying his best to keep to where he remembered his vein to be. Switching hands, he did the same to his right.

"I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." He said, although he wasn't sure who he was sorry to. Kanan, for doing this to him? To the Rebellion, for letting this happen? To the crew, for leaving? To himself? But he couldn't think of a reason to be sorry at himself. He was getting what he deserved, better even.

On that note, being in the supply closet he grabbed the first thing that he could get his hands on, some kind of chemical cleaning agent. He unscrewed the top and without thinking poured it on both wounds at the same time.

It was liquid fire.

Ezra let out a shriek of pain before stifling it, black spots finally starting to cloud his vision, dizziness from blood loss and pain taking his mind and bending it. His chest was hitching, his breath rattling in pain.

 _Jedi don't cry… oh, right._ Ezra thought bitterly, letting his tears flow freely. Everything had been his fault. All from the start. And now, he was going to die on his own, alone, without anyone to love him, without deserving love, hiding away between two boxes. He had expected it in the street, but this was the same effect.

He briefly considered if this had been how much pain his parents felt when they died, if they had died as alone as he was. Ezra hoped to the Force that Kanan didn't find him first. He felt awful for doing it to him, but it was the only thing that made sense. It was the only thing he could do to help at this point. Dying would be the best he could do all of them.

They would finally stop needing to rescue him.

They would finally have some peace in his life.

They would finally forget about him.

More bitter tears slipped from his eyes. He didn't care that he was crying anymore, it wasn't like he would ever become a Jedi. It wasn't like he could disappoint them, let them down any more. Not after everything else.

He faded away more as the pain got worse. He nearly lost his stomach. The smell from the chemicals was burning his nose, and probably his skin. Ezra wondered just how much he had slipped from cohesion when the door opened.

"Chop…" He breathed. "If you tell Hera I'm gonna turn you… into scrap…" He realized how breathy he was.

"I'm not Chopper." Kanan said gently, out of view.

Ezra held his breath. "Noo," He groaned softly. "Leave… Force, leave, leave! Please, Kanan, I'm begging you, don't-" Kanan came over to the boy.

"Ezra what's goi-" Kanan stopped short. His mouth dropped open in horror as he stared at the still pooling blood, like he couldn't believe what was happening. "Ez-Ezra… what have you done!" Kanan could clearly see the look of misery and pain and guilt in his eyes before he shut them, turning his face to the wall and sobbing again.

"Kid…" Kanan couldn't process what was going on. "Ahh, Force…! Force, no! Kid, you didn't! How could you!" Kanan blurted. "Oh Force kid, Ezra…!" He had his hands to his hair, but only for a second. Shaking, he stooped, grabbing the boy in his arms.

Ezra lashed out at him weakly, still grasping the bloodied stone, and protested, groaning and squirming, but Kanan ignored it, ignored the sting in his arm and in his eyes. "Ezra, don't you dare die." He gently brought him to the ground, kneeling and putting him against his chest. "Oh Ezra don't do this to me. Don't leave me. Don't leave us, kid. Please. We need you here, we all do." He lifted Ezra's arms over his head, balancing them on his shoulder, pressing on them tightly. He couldn't stop the blood. It was too much to cover, too deep. "I won't lose you. Don't leave us. Please, Ezra, hang on, don't fall asleep. Stay with me."

"Say bye for me… say sorry for me."

"Ezra there's no saying goodbye. Not yet. This is _not_ your fault. None of this was." Kanan was close to tears, close to angry at the people, the events, that had pushed him towards it. "Don't blame yourself for a second, for any of this."

Ezra was beginning to slip in and out of consciousness.

"No, no no no kid. You stay with me, you fight. You _fight_ , kid. Come on, Ezra. Ezra! I need you! I need you. Stay! Damn it, Ezra, stay!"

His eyes rolled, then opened slightly. He opened his mouth but all that came out was a groan. "Am I really dying now…?" He asked weakly. Behind the relief, behind everything, there was fear. Despite the guilt, he didn't really want to die. Kanan wouldn't let that happen. He would think of something… but _what_.

"No, buddy. Shh, shh. Come on, just keep fighting. Keep fighting, kid. We're going to get through this together. I'm fighting for you, now come on, you gotta fight too."

Fight. That was what set it off.

Kanan gasped and he pulled out his saber.

Ezra looked at it through glassy eyes and confusion. "Nn, you gon' cut my arms off…?" He asked.

"No, I'm sorry…" Kanan ignited it, taking a deep breath. Without another moment's hesitation, he laid the saber on his forearm, above the wounds. Ezra gave a scream, pulling his arm away before it cauterized, his hand closing even tighter around the stone. Kanan took his arm and held it tightly before finishing the job.

"Ahh! _Stop!_ " Ezra begged.

"I'm _so_ sorry." Kanan said, white as a corpse. The Force was in turmoil. He grit his teeth, moving onto the next arm. He did this in one try. Ezra screamed again, still crying. This time, he wept into Kanan's chest.

Kanan deactivated his saber and put it back in his belt, cradling the boy to his chest. "Shh, shh. Come here Ezra. It's okay, it's over now, I'm sorry kid. Breathe. Breathe, Ezra. I'm so sorry. Shh, shh. Go to sleep." _Go to sleep so I can cry._

"K-anan…" Ezra's voice was tinny, sounding like a child. Ezra cried a little harder.

Kanan kept rocking him and rubbing his back. As the seconds wore on, more tears threatened his eyes. "Shh, I'm right here. I'm here Ezra. I'm not leaving you, in fact I'm never leaving you again."

Ezra sobbed harder. "It hurts."

"I know kid. I'm so sorry, it won't hurt for much longer, I promise."

"He died, Kanan!" Ezra wailed. "He died right in my arms! He-! It-! They ki-! It's my fa-!"

"Shh, Ezra. Breathe. _Breathe_ , kid. You're not even gasping." It pained Kanan that he couldn't reach Ezra through the Force, but he was still doing his best to calm his padawan down.

Ezra's sobs lessened slightly. "Everything!" He screamed.

"What?"

"Everything is my fa-ault! Zeb! Ship! The boy! Me, me, me!"

"No, no no no, don't you think like that Ezra." He scolded softly. "This was not your fault. It's the Empire. It was their fault. They had us all fooled. Ezra they were about to kill you. It's not your fault. It's not your fault, kid. Shh, shh, you need to sleep."

"No!" Ezra shouted. "No! Every time I close my eyes I see him! Every time! B-blaming me! E-everything!"

"Force forbid. This wasn't your fault. This wasn't your fault, kid." Kanan kept Ezra close to his chest to hide his own tears. How close to death his poor boy had come, how guilty he still felt.

Still felt…

"The Force inhibitor is wearing off, kid."

"No… ten minutes ago…"

"Because of how much blood you've lost, Ezra." His Force signature was very weak, but it was still coming back. Or maybe had completely returned, for how weak Ezra had become. Kanan pushed sleep and strength into the Force, as much as he could, and it hit his padawan dead on.

"Kanan… don't… leave me… I'm so sorry… for this… for everything."

"Come on kid, of course I forgive you. Sleep, come on, I'll be right here when you wake up. You won't die."

Ezra nodded, closing his eyes. The Force said that he was resting.

Kanan stood, picking his precious padawan up. He felt his heart hurt, and realized just how horrible he felt, how close to death Ezra had come.

Even though Jedi didn't cry, he stood in the middle of the closet and wept.

 *****Soooo... comments, death threats, suggestions? I hope it hurt your heart! Hey this one is on you, you followed me, I never said I wouldn't crush your heart and mind!*****


	2. The Run

*****You're going to hate me for this one. Has some laughs in it because it gets very serious in the end. Have a good night! This is only getting worse!*****

"Ezra!" Hera yelled, pounding on the door to the fresher.

Ezra sighed, there was no arguing with that tone of voice. "What Hera!"

"I need you to go to the market with Kanan and get groceries and supplies! We're only going to be here for a few more hours."

Even though it was futile, Ezra shot back, "Why can't Zeb do it!"

Hera pulled in a breath, and the teen assumed it was to calm down. "Ezra Bridger! You get these things off the list back to me in three hours or I swear to you I will drop you on Hoth with nothing but your under breaches on! I asked you to do it so you're _going_ to do it! Zeb can't right now because he's off doing maintenance! So you either start listening to me for once or you finally start to pay the consequences!"

He dried his face. "Fine, I'll be right out, just leave the list by the door."

"It's there! You had better be gone in ten minutes!"

The teen grumbled under his breath, "Sheesh, you go to Hoth." He pulled on his shirt and walked out of the fresher, where the note fluttered to the ground. She had obviously put it inside the door, where there was no way he could miss it. Ezra rolled his eyes in irritation and stooped, picking it up. There were around thirty items on the list.

"Force help me." he muttered. Granted, it wouldn't be very hard using the Force to find everything. It usually only half an hour to find a list this long, and if he came back over that, it was because he was exploring or hanging around.

In this case, it would be because he wanted to get away from Hera.

She didn't usually have bad moods, but when she did, they had to steer clear.

The Force called out that his master was there, and he turned his head. Sure enough, Kanan was standing over him. He gave his padawan a half grin.

"I'm done in there." Ezra said absently, standing up and starting to walk off.

"Can I go with you?"

"What? Why?" He asked, even though he knew the answer.

"I'd rather not be slapped by Hera again."

"She slapped you!? Why?"

"I suggested to her that she calm down."

Despite himself, Ezra snorted.

His master's face wrinkled at the top, but he still smiled slightly. "You wouldn't think this were funny if it were you."

"Yeah, but I'm not the one who told Hera to calm down."

"So you're saying I deserved it?"

"I'm saying I think you should know better by now." Ezra smirked and turned his back on his master, walking down the hall to the loading dock and ramp.

"Kanan!" The voice was sharp. There was no mistaking who it came from.

The Jedi sighed and turned around. "Yes Hera?"

"Why are you leaving? I sent _Ezra_ to get the supplies, not you."

"I forgot to add some things on the list. Besides, the last time Ezra went alone a bomb exploded. I'm not going to chance that again."

"It would be like lightning striking twice somewhere."

"With you? Again, I'm not going to take that chance."

"But we're on a different planet. I can take care of myself! I'm almost sixteen for crying out loud."

"You can take care of yourself? Okay, I'll remember that the next time you're chased out of the market because someone recognized the blue haired street rat. Unless you want me to cut off your hair, then you can go alone."

"No one is going to recognize me Kanan." Ezra muttered.

"Would you two stop bickering already and get on with it!" Hera exclaimed, sweeping her arm to the door. "We have two hours now!"

"But the only reason he wants to go with and _babysit_ me is because he wants to get away from you!"

 _Force kid, throw me off this thing right now why don't you._

"Really Kanan!" Hera snapped. "Fine, go, I'd rather not see you right now. Especially after last night."

Kanan put a hand to his head. "Just don't leave us here, Hera. We'll be back as soon as we can. Okay?"

"Then go."

Without another word Kanan and Ezra walked off the ship. As soon as they were on the ground, Ezra gave him a sideways glance. He grinned a little. "So what happened last night?"

Kanan's face got immediately pink. "I know exactly what you mean by that and don't you dare go there kid! We are not a couple, no matter how much you and Sabine want us to be!"

"And don't forget Zeb!"

"Oh please you think Zeb could care less?"

"You two look like a couple, you two act like a couple, you have children!"

"Just what children do you think she and I have had! We have no baby Twi'leks running around on the ship!"

"You have Sabine and Zeb and I! Don't deny Hera _and_ you go into mother hen mode whenever we go on a mission!"

"Because you're our crew! And I'm not a _mother_ hen!"

"You're right, you're a rooster! You craw in the mornings and wake everyone up, you're always pecking the mother hen, you take n-"

"Pecking! What do you mean by pecking!"

Ezra laughed. "Take that as you will."

Kanan blushed but said nothing more. After a minute he sighed. "We're about ten minutes from the market."

"It looks that way."

"In those ten minutes could you try not to say something irritating? Oh don't you go and feel successful."

"The bond…" Ezra muttered.

"Yup."

The teen sighed, a small smile pushing at his face, but said nothing until they were nearly at the market.

"You know that the chances of another bomb going off with me here is really slim, right?"

Kanan didn't answer him, and Ezra felt how concentrated he was. It was concerning, especially with the look on his face.

"Kanan? Is everything okay? Why do you look like that?"

"The Force is warning me that something is wrong. I'm going to comm Zeb, tell him to meet us here."

"You think he will?"  
"To get off maintenance? You think he likes it?"

"That's true."

Kanan pressed his comm. "Zeb, we need you here." His face screwed up and he sighed. "He doesn't have it on, again."

"He only has it on when he's on missions."

"Perfect." Kanan rolled his eyes.

"We can do it alone."

"I think that whatever's coming is bigger than just us being able to handle it."

Ezra shook his head. "Come on, let's get this done. I take half you take half?"

"Alright, fine. Just be careful."

"You too. I've got weapons, you don't."

"When? You didn't grab any on the way out." Kanan turned to Ezra in surprise, looking at his pants pockets. They were stuffed.

"Or did I?" Ezra laughed. "The best pickpocket uses distraction!"

"You didn't! I can tell. The Force says that you didn't."

"Okay so maybe I was kidding."

Kanan rolled his eyes. "You can't lie to me kid."

Ezra ripped the list in half. "Well, I almost did, and I almost tricked you."

"But you didn't." Kanan stressed.

Ezra smirked. "But if you didn't have the Force to help you, you would have bought it! So I win."

Kanan pursed his lips. "There is no winning! You can't lie to your master. It's unethical and it doesn't work."

"Did you try to lie to _your_ master?"

"It doesn't matter."

"You totally tried to lie to your master and she didn't buy it whatsoever!"

"I'm a good actor! She bought it!"

"Until the Force told her you were acting." Ezra rolled his eyes and turned his back to Kanan, walking off.

"Give me my half of the list."

Ezra chuckled. "I was wondering when you'd realize I had it."

All Kanan said as he took it was, "Sure, kid, I'll pretend that the Force isn't saying anything to me right now."

The teen laughed again and walked off into the market.

As he walked, he thought about how similar all markets were, no matter what planet it was on. All kinds of races, mainly Twi'leks and Mandalorians, the occasional Lasat. He frowned, realizing that most kids his age and younger didn't know what a Lasat was.

He almost tripped over a pothole, the Force yelling at him to keep his balance before it was too late. He stumbled, but was able to catch himself.

All markets had the same things about them, the people, what kinds of items they sold, even how they set up their stations, but in different ways they all varied. Every planet sold clothes, their own assortment of foods (although all sold canned goods and staples), the black markets (which Hera forbid him ever to go to again) sold weapons, and here and there toys and trinkets. Some displayed their things behind glass, others behind their tables. Yes, most were Mandalorians and Twi'leks, but their faces differed. Sometimes, they looked relatively healthy. Here, they looked gaunt, and stressed, like they hadn't slept in a while. Some looked even sickly. Ezra walked up to a child who was offering her sewing skills.

"Hi there."

She looked up at him blankly.

"You do speak my language, right?" He asked.

"You need old clothing sewn?" her tone of voice was robotic.

"Umm, no. I, you look, sick. Or tired, or, something. You okay kid?"

"I work to eat. My mother is ill. She waits in line for medicine. Can I fix?"

Ezra paused in consideration. She seemed so young. "Umm, no, but, I think I can help."

 _I swear to the Force kid that if you steal for her I'll tell Hera on you._

 _Kanan! Come on! That's not fair!_

 _And stealing from people who are equally as bad off as they are is? You wouldn't be helping anything, Ezra. We'll bring in more medicine and food soon. I'll make a note of it._

 _So this dying kid and her mother just become a note! That's perfect!_ Ezra glowered at his shoes.

 _I can sense your frustration but there's nothing much that we can do. The Empire has been syphoning them for years now, slowly getting rid of their rations._

 _And we're just hearing about this! And we're not even helping if we do know? Kanan how right is_ that _!_

 _This universe is a huge place, Ezra, with many planets, with countless people. We can't be there for everyone. We can damn well try, we can help as many as we can. No one will be left as a footnote. But Ezra, we can only help so many. We will absolutely not leave this town to rot, we will get them supplies and food and medicine, but we have to take into consideration, we're already helping another 27 planets as it is, in 8 different galaxies. We couldn't have caught this any sooner._

Irritation and sadness seeped into the Force, but Ezra said nothing more.

Wanting to get out of the market as quickly as possible now, Ezra dove into the Force, letting it cut a path for him to get the rest of what they needed. Kanan had already taken care of more than his half of things, which Ezra wasn't surprised about. Walking along the path, he looked at the ground, unable to meet anyone's faces.

 _We're supposed to be helping them. Not letting them starve to death and die of colds._

It had gotten worse than the last time they had stopped on Naboo. It was like the pandemic had hit, only it wasn't exactly sickness.

It was the Empire.

The Empire was always sticking their dirty fingers into towns, killing them fast or slow didn't matter to them, all they wanted was… well, Force knew what in the end. If everything went but their army, they would have nothing left to ruin. It would only be them, spreading their sickness onto bloodstained land.

 _Ezra, you're getting slow! I already finished with the list._

 _Good for you. You got lucky, got in the right side. So what?_

 _Ezra… don't do this, come on._

 _Don't talk to me Kana-_

Kanan got a jolt as his padawan's signature let off waves of startlement and danger.

 _Ezra!_ Kanan yelled into the Force. No response at first sent him into a panic. The kid answered by pushing a couple waves of relaxation at him.

 _I'm fine. I was just startled by someone. I'm fine, don't worry. Sorry to have scared you._

Kanan relaxed, but still let the Force cut him a path to his padawan. He still wanted to be as sure as he could that he was safe.

 _You really doubt me?_ Came his snarky answer.

 _You're getting good with the Force. And I don't._

 _Sure. You wouldn't still be worrying about me if you didn't._

 _I'm protective over yo-_

 _No, you're_ over _protective. I'll meet you at the ship, I gotta do something._

 _Well then I'm coming with you._

 _No, you're not Kanan._

 _Okay, now I'm really coming with you._

Kanan got slammed with a wave of anger as Ezra shut his mind. "Force kid, you almost make this hard for me." Kanan followed the path the Force had originally given him. He ducked through the crowd as if it were nothing, smiling and nodding to people if they gave him weird looks. A few, he noted, were Force sensitive. They also looked ill at ease.

Just what was going to happen?

Kanan forgot to look down and before the Force could warn him slammed into a kid, knocking him down. He immediately began to cry.

"Oh _no._ Kid, don't cry. Don't cry, kid, come on, get up." He grabbed the boy by the shoulders and hauled him up. He cried worse. "Oh come on, I didn't mean to hurt you… please… people are staring!" He raised his voice. "I didn't hurt him!"

"Yes he did!" the kid yelled.

Rumblings began.

"I tripped over him but he's not hurt, see, not a scratch…!" Kanan lifted one of his arms up. Two tears of blood ran down his wrist from a scrape. The father gave Kanan a death glare.

 _Ezra!_  
 _What did you do!_

 _What do you mean what did I do! You don't know that I did anything!_

 _It's you. You only yell for me like that if you screw something up bad._

 _I hurt a kid and his father wants to kill me!_

 _Do what every criminal does!_ Run _, Kanan, run!_

 _But I'm not a criminal!_

 _You try telling them that!_ Ezra said as the dad and his friend began advancing.

"Gee, look at the time, I really gotta get to my own son now…" Kanan said, before dashing off.

Kanan kept on the path that the Force had given him. _Ezra where_ are _you! Where are you going, and who are you going after? I know when you're lying so you'd better not lie to me!_

 _I'm not lying! I'm not following anyone and I'm walking around. I'm burning off steam, unless you want me to be as bad off as Hera when we take off! Now leave me alone!_

 _You're_ chasing _someone! Who is it!_

 _No one!_

 _She must be damn pretty to make you go that fast!_ Kanan said, in an attempt to get him to admit he was chasing someone.

 _He is not a girl!_

 _Wow Ezra I had no idea._

 _Kanan!_

Despite himself, Kanan laughed. _Come on, kid. Where are you going? Who are you chasing after?_

 _Someone stupid!_

Kanan kept running, pushing himself just a little harder and tapping into the Force for speed for good measure. He flew even faster, knowing he'd catch up to Ezra in just a few minutes. As he ran, he thought.

He didn't like that his padawan was keeping secrets from him. Of course, he would quickly find them out, which meant it didn't matter. It seemed a pretty trivial thing, actually, but if it stemmed from trust issues the matter would have to be dealt with, and quickly. This wasn't the first time Ezra hadn't trusted him, and it wouldn't be the last, but he didn't like the idea altogether.

The fact that he had been startled before all of this made him concerned as well. He could feel Ezra's anxiety, but not for himself. It was for someone else. Whoever he was running to was clearly going to do something not only stupid, but dangerous. Someone who he cared about.

 _Ezra is one of your friends in danger?_

Kanan got no response, as much as he expected. But the response he got from the Force was enough to confirm. A small feeling that he had struck a cord. That he was onto him.

He caught sight of the teen 50 meters in front of him, and picked it up a notch, dashing to catch up to him.

"You mind telling me why we're running and where we're running to?"

"Yes, I do!"

"Well, that's too bad. I'm your master. And you pretty much dragged me into this mess. So you have to tell me."

"I won't!" Ezra snapped. "Go! Leave, now!"

"Nope! You're going to tell me, I'm going to find out soon enough anyway!"

"You really need to go Kanan, he'll flip if he sees you. He'll freak when he sees _me_ , but you too? You, need to go. You need to take the things back to the ship before they get stolen."

"I already hid them, they'll be safe until we _both_ get back to them. Now what is going on?"

"Noth-"

Ezra didn't get the chance to finish. White and heat exploded in front of them. The teen didn't react as fast as Kanan did. He ran out in front of him and used his body to shield him, pulling him onto the ground and holding him close as the heat got closer and closer. Their vision went from black to purple to silver and yellow. His padawan yelled in surprise and pain as the heat blistered them both.

It was only the beginning of the screams.

 *****I know, I know! Bad #EvilMindedZ ! I couldn't help it! It's in my nature! Like, follow, comment, I thank you for letting me kill your heart!*****


	3. Friends

*****Sorry for leaving you on such a cliffe! You know me though! Yes I'm just as Evil as ever in this one. Sorry if you just ate... it's not pretty... there is fluff to come though I promise! You just have to make it through this. Thanks for all of your reviews! I love them! You guys are awesome. Enjoy!*****  
"Kanan!" Ezra yelled, confusion and panic in his voice. A rumble made the ground shake, making them both jostle.

Kanan said nothing, only holding his padawan tighter.

"Kanan what's happening!" The teen shouted.

"I think you know, kid." Kanan replied, his voice solemn. As he spoke, screams tore skyward behind them. It wasn't like anything Ezra had heard before.

He'd heard screams, of fear, of pain, but never screams of death. For a moment he was reminded of banshees. People were dying.

Only after the ground had stopped shaking did Kanan stand up, before realizing it wasn't the ground that was still shaking. He spun himself in front of Ezra, looking at him carefully. "Are you okay?"

"Just a little crispy." was the first thing that fell from his mouth.

Despite himself, Kanan almost smiled. "I see your humor is still intact." More screams by the second were coming at them, rising in pitch as friends found family members, as the worst of the pain finally set in, as some were trampled to get Force only knew where.

The wind was blowing thick smoke in their direction.

"Ah, Force!"

"What?"

"The wind, that means that the fire is going to spread towards here, right towards the market. We have to keep everyone as far from the blast site as possible… We need more people helping us. Even if Hera and Zeb were here we'd still need more help." Kanan raised his voice. "Anyone and everyone with medical training and who wants to help, we need your help!"

No one paid attention.

"It looks like we're on our own!" Ezra said, before turning and running towards the smoke.

"What do you think you're doing, kid!" his master demanded.

"My friend is out there!"

"You have friends?!" Kanan blurted.

"Kanan! Not the time!" Ezra snapped.

"Force knows where he is!"

"You're right, the Force _does_ know!"  
"Well right now, we have to focus on getting the walking wounded out of here and treating the severely injured!"

"I'm going after my friend! He's hurt!" Ezra yelled, turning to run off.

"Oh no you don't! Don't make me do this!" Kanan threatened. The boy kept speeding away. "Ah, blast!" With that, making sure no one was looking, Kanan Force-pulled Ezra back.

The teen let out a cry of protest.

"Ezra how well do you know that friend that you haven't seen in years, huh? The one who just killed dozens of people in under one minute!" Kanan got a grip on him and he immediately began to struggle.

"Kanan _let me go_!"

"No Ezra! You're staying here and you're helping me."

"Kanan let me _go_! He needs me! Kanan, he was attacking the Empire, not the city!"

Kanan's grip loosened in surprise. "What?"

Ezra whirled around to face him, chest to ears a rather dark shade of pink. With panic, with anger, with heat from the explosion.

Kanan had to keep in mind that he was just a kid.

If he went any further into the blast, and if they stayed this close to the blast zone, he was sure to see things that would scar him.

If he didn't, he would be letting his friend die.

"The was attacking an Empire base," Ezra explained, cutting through his thoughts. "One that's here, one that _we_ didn't know about! He wasn't trying to kill people, just blow the scum-infested place up so that _maybe_ they would leave this town at least alone!"

"Ezra I'll get your friend, the Force can lead me to him! You focus on crowd control. Ugh hold on! Hera-Hera, I kn-Hera, we're fin-Hera would you shut up! Get the ship as close as you can to the market. Prep the med bay. We're going to have a lot of incomings. These people don't have medical supplies. Yes he does."

Ezra's comm went off.

 _Ezra are you okay?_

"I'm fine, Hera. Kanan's going to go get someone. I'm going to make sure that people aren't running to the blast."

 _You can do that from the market. The walking wounded are going to be sent there. Kanan and I will focus on the more severely wounded near the blast site. You and Zeb make sure that no one goes running off past there. We want to have as little psychological trauma as possible with this._

"Okay Hera. Basically give them first aid? Who do we send to the med bay?"

Hera didn't pause. _Everyone, Ezra. All of these people have been depleted of health and nutrition for who knows how long. When you get them patched up or if they're not injured, send them to the med bay for a health scan. Zeb will be bringing down first aid packs. If they're too injured to get up the ramp, use the wheelchair. We're about fifty seconds out now, get to the market as fast as you can. Kanan and I will be using the stretchers and more technical devices._

"This isn't your first bombing, is it?"

There was silence at first. "Get a move on, Ezra."

He didn't need any more encouragement. Ezra took off as fast as he could, his feet flying over the grass. His comm went off again, and Kanan's voice echoed in his head as he ran.

 _Hera!_

 _What, Kanan! We don't have time for this, I'll be using the hover to get to you. Be ready. Start the evac. You've done this before._

 _Hera, are you crazy! That's going to completely eat up all of our supplies!_

 _Kanan what do you propose we do? Leave them to die? We can always get more, they can't! And we won't use all of it up. The blast was only what, one building? The count is probably at around 70 people max. Including the walking wounded._

Ezra chimed in. "You, know she's, right! We need, to, listen to her. Can't leave them, alone like that."

 _I just landed! You'd better have started, Kanan._

 _I did start! I've already shuffled nineteen walking wounded out and laid out two severs._

 _How far are you from blast site?_

 _A block! It's getting pretty sticky. There's no more walking wounded and about a dozen that I can see. I'm gonna go circle, there's probably going to be more._

 _On my way. Hover is loaded. Ezra, how far to market are you?_

"Three blocks! No, two now."

 _Zeb is unloading the first aid kits now. I've told the medical droids what they need to do, all are out of storage. Good luck._

"You guys are going to need it more than me."

 _Yes, we will._ Kanan's voice came somber over the comm link, before they switched channels.

Ezra was going so fast and was paying so little attention that he didn't see someone come out in front of him. "Whoa!" he exclaimed, putting his hands out in front of him and veering away from the sudden obstruction. "Sorry, can't talk. First aid in the marke-"

"Help!" The man wailed.

It was enough to make Ezra hit the brakes and whirl around. His eyes went wide, unable or, maybe unwilling, to process what he was seeing. He immediately knew that it was something that would come back in nightmares.

The man had streaks of blood soaking the top of his shirt, his scrawny body shaking with effort to stand. He had a goudge so deep in his face that two of his top teeth showed, metal still sticking out of his cheek. Blood gushed around it and drooled out of his misshapen mouth. His hands were scraped but the blood had clotted. It wasn't the mouth wound that was causing so much blood to crust on his shirt anyway. It was the thing that was resting on his other cheek.

It was his eyeball.

Ezra couldn't stop staring at it. The dura mater was barely connected, hanging out a good inch of where it was supposed to be, the now empty socket bleeding freely. The eyeball was covered in blood.

The man approached. "Help!" He pleaded again.

Waves of panic and sickness escaped into the Force. Without even realizing it Ezra was sick all over the ground. He shook badly. Kanan immediately responded.

 _Ezra! What's going on, what happened?_ He pushed calm at his padawan. It barely did anything.

 _He…! His_ eye _, Kanan!_

 _Get him to Zeb, kid. It's alright. He's going to be fine. Ezra, listen to me. He's going to be fine, just breathe, Ezra._ Ezra could hear the worry in his voice.

The man could see the look of horror on his face. "What!" He screamed at the boy. "What is it! What is it! I'm going to die! I'm going to die aren't I! I'm going to die, it's deadly…!"

"No, no! You're, not…! You're not…! It's, it's nothing."

"I can't see! I can't see! What's wrong with me, what's wrong with me!"

Ezra frantically tried to find Kanan and Hera's channel. "Hera!" Ezra was practically yelling.

"What's wrong with me!"

"Hera! His eye…!

"What's wrong with my eye! Where is my eye!"

"I, it's on your face!"

"I'm gonna be blind!"

"Not completely. At least you've got one eye left…!"

The man reached to his face and touched the eye. "I can feel it! I can still feel it!"

"It's not totally gone yet."

"Yet?! I'm going to lose it!"

"Um, no, no... I don't know…! I don't think so."

The man started crying.

Hera beeped through the comm. _Ezra, let me talk to him._

"You'll do a much better job than me, I have him in tears!" He took the comm out of his ear and pressed the button to make it go onto speaker.

 _What's your name, mister?_

"I-is she talking to, to me?"

 _I am. My name is Hera, by the way._

"I-I'm Tarja."

 _Guess what, I heard what happened to you, and you're not going to lose your eye. It's still attached, so you, Tarja, are going to be seeing by the end of the day. I promise._

"I just want to see my daughter again! Where is she! Is she hurt! I can't find her!"

 _What does she look like?_

"Pink hair, tattoo on her right hand."

 _Oh no…_ It didn't come from the comm. It was Kanan's voice, but it was through the Force. Ezra felt a wave of pity ripple through it.

 _She's dead, isn't she…?_ Ezra asked.

 _With her eyes open. Rigor mortis has already set in, I can't close them. We're going to have to have him wait to make the confirmation until after she's limp again. There's too much fear in her eyes._ Kanan's voice was solemn, almost business-like.

Ezra frowned. "You need to come with me. You need to get your eye checked out."

"Alright, alright." The man took a shaky breath.

Ezra took the comm off speaker and put it back in his ear, pulling the man by his arm. He did his best to keep his face neutral, turned away from the man, but he couldn't hide the tears that were gathering in his eyes.

Kanan sighed as he stood. He shook his head at Hera. "He's gone too."

"Blast!" Hera swore. "He's what 21? This isn't fair! This was _right_ under our _noses_!"

"I know! We need to move on." As he was saying that there was a moan from their left. It was a soft moan, one that was almost too soft to have anything of life in it. Hera turned her head and hefted the bag, scanning around for the source. Fifty yards ahead of them, there was a man, maybe fifty years old, with gaping wounds all over his body.

Hera shook her head. "There's nothing we can do for him." She walked over to the dying man, before turning her head back to Kanan. "I'll comfort him, the hover is almost here anyway. Everyone else is dead. You find Ezra's mystery friend. Take a pack if he's still alive."

"I will, thanks."

"And treat those burns, that's an order."

"I don't take orders from you."

"Alright, fine. Just don't come crying to me when we're out of synthskin and bacta." She made her way towards the dying man again as Kanan dove into the Force, searching for the boy. He wasn't even sure that he was still alive, but the Force cut him a path nonetheless.

"Alright, where are you, mystery kid? And why in the hell did you really hurt these people?" Kanan jogged along the path he was given, forcing himself not to look at the dead and still bleeding bodies.

The Force told him to look up, and so he did.

His stomach churned.

The Force told him this was the boy, and for a moment, he was almost grateful for his wounds. He had caused this, after all.

But he _was_ judging a potentially innocent boy, one that Ezra, untrusting Ezra, had given his trust to.

The boy was still alive, but didn't have long.

His face was bubbled on one side, some of the skin on his hand almost blackened. His shirt had fused to the injured skin underneath and he had bits of shrapnel lodged in his chest and abdomen. Even from a distance he could see the blood pooling underneath him and irregular breaths. The boy turned his face to him, and their eyes locked.

Any dislike for him dissolved into pity. In his eyes there was agony, and horror, and… confusion? The Force confirmed his thoughts: the boy hadn't planned on _this_ happening. Maybe Ezra had been right to trust him.

Kanan jogged over to the boy.

He immediately croaked, wincing.

"Don't talk. Force, I'm not good at this, okay. Just, don't talk. You'll waste your energy. Just focus on breathing… you're Ezra's friend, right?"

His eyes widened at Ezra's name and he croaked again. "-okay?"

"He's fine, we were away from the blast."

"Others?"

"Not so much."

"Not me… building, only the buil-ahh!" He writhed.

"What did I tell you, don't talk, kid." Kanan pushed down on his shoulder. "You're going to live, you'll be fine. I'm not going to do that to Ezra." the Jedi sighed. He trusted the Force. "You only meant to blow the building… I trust that. The Empire probably caught on, made sure you got hurt. Just rest, okay, I'm not going to leave you to die, kid." Kanan opened his bag, questions running through his mind. The questions could wait until he was out of the woods.

The first thing he brought out would draw the shrapnel out of his body. That would be one of most risky parts. Some could have impaled an organ. It was technically called a magnetizing and ion changing removal device, but he and Hera just called it the "Micard". Kanan said nothing, steeling himself as he turned it on. It powered up with a humm, and he started to wave it rhythmically above the boy's form.

He screamed in pain.

"I know, I know."

Tears rolled off his ears. "Ahh…! It hurts!"

"I know, I know, it's alright. You'll be okay. It's not going to hurt forever. This is helping."

The boy moaned in response, turning into a whimper at the end. Blood gushed freely from the now unobstructed wounds.

Kanan turned the device off, and a six inch blood covered ball dropped to the ground. He pushed it behind him, out of sight.

"I'm cold…" The boy said.

That was never good, especially with how much blood had already been lost. The jedi would have to pick up the pace now. He grabbed the second thing he would need to use, which looked like nothing more than a water spritzer. Inside though was far from water. It was a chemical cleansing and clotting agent, one of the rarer liquids out there, though surprisingly easy to make.

Kanan started with the shrapnel wounds first, before realizing he'd have to cut his shirt off. He searched in his bag, but realized that Hera still had the scissors. Sighing, and knowing that the kid probably wasn't going to make it long enough to tell anyone anyway, he used the Force to take it off, quickly spritzing the wounds. They immediately began to clot, although it wasn't automatic. It would take about four minutes to take full effect. The redness was already fading, which meant that there were chemical burns on him.

The boy sniffled. "Who…?"

"Who am I? My name is Kanan. I'm going to work on your lungs now. One's collapsed from a puncture. Just breathe as deep as you can." Kanan rummaged through the bag for the next thing that he needed: an intubation and inflation device. It had a longer needle on it for access to the lung, a shorter needle to get rid of the air that was surrounding the lung. It wouldn't be a fix but it would keep him alive until they were able to get the rib back in place.

Ezra's friend coughed and speckles of blood flew onto his chin. He groaned.

Kanan tried to ignore the fact that his Force signature was rapidly going away. The boy was dying. He'd already clotted the wounds so acidosis might have been the cause. If that was the case, intubating was the only chance that he had, since Kanan had no access to saline. He pulled the IID out of his pack and dipped his head onto the boy's chest. There was wheezing from the left side of the lung, as well as swelling. It was the left that had deflated.

His Force signature was almost non-existent. If this didn't work, he would lose him for sure.

"Kid, you'd better hang on. Ezra's had one too many losses in his life, he'd better not lose you too. _I'm_ not going to lose you. Don't let the Empire beat you." As he spoke he directed the longer needle at the boy's lung, before pushing it in and twisting open the valve. There was a hissing, and some of his signature returned. Quickly after, his breathing evened out slightly as the lung inflated and the air around it went away slightly. Still, he was nowhere near out of the woods.

Letting the IID do its job, he quickly put a non rebreather mask on him, although it wasn't as potent as the real one, having been homemade. He just had to hope that it was enough to get him back to the ship in one piece. Loading him onto the stretcher, the wounds were almost completely clotted. It was a good sign, at least.

But he couldn't ignore the fact that he was still dying.

 *****Will he live? When did he and Ezra meet? Who is he? Why did he plant the bomb? Some of these questions will be answered! Have fun waiting on the next installment! This wasn't TOO BAD of a cliffe!*****


	4. Promise

*****Huge chapter I know, longest I'll ever write, but very quick read and all needed. Fluff and stuff. Gore and more. Enjoy! Happy weekend!*****

Ezra could feel the change in the Force that Kanan had sent, and immediately jumped.

 _He's dead?!_ He demanded.

 _Relax, kid. He's alive…_

 _For now!_

 _For now… he's bad off._

 _What injuries does he have!?_

 _Burns, shrapnel wounds, hypovolemic and possible neurogenic shock, and a deflated lung, with a broken rib. We're in the hover, fifty seconds out. You said the evac was done?  
It is!_

 _Meet us in the med bay if you can stay calm._

Hearing that, Ezra turned to Zeb. "My friend is being taken to the med bay, you hold it down here!"

Zeb looked at the kid in confusion. "You have friends? Since when?"

"Why is everyone asking me that today!"

"Because the only friend we've ever heard you mention or seen you with is with that space pirate! Go, Ezra. I'll take care of things here."

Ezra nodded his thanks and ran off, the durasteel ramp clanging under his pounding footsteps. He tried to not freak out, as Kanan had instructed, but it was hard when the Force was telling him how bad off he was.

"Force please just save him." He muttered.

From the corner of his eye, he saw the incoming hover. That and Kanan's face. It was only a glimpse of it before it disappeared into the side of the ship, but the image of it was burned into his mind, making his stomach flip. His master was ashen, his eyes hard and squinted, eyebrows almost coming together in his face. His mouth was turned down in a worried, focused frown. It was the same face he'd gotten used to seeing over the last couple of months. There were speckles of blood on his face, though whose it was was anyone's guess.

It was what was in his eyes that all but convinced Ezra that his friend was going to die. There was doubt in Kanan's eyes. There was doubt and worry. Kanan never showed that. It usually meant that he was trying to ignore something that the Force was saying.

 _Don't think like that._ It was Kanan. Ezra realized he must have been sending waves of despair over the Force.

 _Oh just shut up,_ was the best comeback he could think of.

 _Ezra he's going to be fine. Hera and Sabine and the med droids have got him now. Don't worry._

 _Don't worry!?_ _Don't worry? Okay! I won't worry. I'm fine now._

"Ezra, you know how I meant that."

Ezra's fists clenched at the voice behind him. "Leave me alone Kanan. I'm really fine. I haven't seen him in years so why would I care about him?"

"Why would you?"

There were people swarming around them, heading outside. Some were bumping into Ezra, which only made him more irritated. "Could they watch where they're going?"

"Some don't have good balance. Come on, let's go into the kitchen. It's more private there."

"Too bad, I don't want to talk. Not about my friend, not about what happened or what I saw. Just put me to work, I'm fine!"

"Did you ever think that I wanted to talk?" He questioned.

"No, you never talk about anything."

"Actually, I do. You're the one who keeps everything inside. It's not healthy. I'm worried about you. The first time I saw bomb victims, it was awful. I still remember it to this day. I still have nightmares about it, to this day. And I wanted, I needed, someone to be there for me."

"I'm not _you_ , Kanan! I'm stronger than that." Ezra wound up snapping.

Kanan glared at him, folding his arms. "I'm trying to help you kid and you keep pushing me away. You're not as strong as you want to be. You're not strong enough to get through this alone. No one is! Especially after what you saw!"

"And what did I see Kanan! It was just an eye, blast! It's not like someone's guts were spilling onto my shoes!"

"Well excuse me for thinking that you might want to talk to me. I don't know I guess I was wrong about that. I'll keep that in mind the next time you look like you want to talk about something. I will definitely keep that in mind!"

Their fight was so loud that it drew Hera out of the med bay. Her gloves and apron were stained with blood. She glared at them both. "Alright you two! If you don't knock this off right now, you're back outside! These people are traumatized already without you two having a shouting match right outside the med bay! Am I clear?"

Ezra said nothing, storming off to a different part of the ship, closing his mind as he walked. Still, waves of anger flowed off him, as strong as punches.

Kanan glared at him, turning to head to glare at Hera, but his expression quickly softened. "Sorry. I guess it didn't help."

"Get your gown on, we're understaffed, I need you in there."

Kanan said nothing as he walked over to the closet with the gowns and gloves, right outside the door of the med bay. He slipped one over his head, grabbing the large sized latex gloves. It had been a while since he'd needed to do anything medical related, let alone needing to gear up. "How many critical?"

"Five. Med droids are working on three. Sabine and I are working on the unstable. You need to work on the stabilized one."

"Med droids are working on Ezra's friend, aren't they?"

"They are." Hera reached out to put a hand on Kanan's shoulder but stopped herself as to not spread the blood. "He'll make it, he's in good hands." Hera paused. "He's going to open up to you. He always does. Just give him some time. You were the same way."

"No I wasn't."

Hera allowed herself to chuckle. "You're right, you were worse."

"Hera!" It was Sabine from inside the room. "I need you! He's crashing!"

Without another word both of them raced through the door.

"Where do you need me?" Kanan asked.

Hera interlocked her fingers and started pushing on the man's chest. "Clamp. In the one we haven't closed."

Kanan tried to push back the thought of _what does a clamp look like again?_ as he looked on the table of blood soaked tools. He doubted all of the blood was from the one man. Not that it mattered. Locating the clamp, he opened it and looked at the gash. Blood was spilling onto the floor.

"The man had shrapnel in the common iliac. We clamped on both sides and pulled it. We stitched it but he's got another bleeder somewhere. BP skyrocketed when he went into shock. Not enough oxygen. Intubated and it went down but he's still bleeding out."

 _Force help me._ Kanan thought to himself.

"I can't see anything in there. Sabine, give me some suction."

The girl put the tube into the cavity of the wound. It barely did any good. "Kanan we've recirculated as much blood as we could. He's not getting better. He's barely got a pulse. His oxygen levels are low. His BP is still high. We need to focus on the others."

Hera glared down at the man's face. "We are not going to be the reason his son is an orphan do you understand me Sabine? We keep going until he's really dead! There is still a chance!"

Sabine shook her head but didn't say anything.

Kanan let the Force guide him to one part of the wound. "Got it! Clamped the first part." He reached blindly for the second clamp. "Clamping second now. Still need to look for the bleeder. Sabine, you stitch him up again, I'll stop the bleeding. After you've stitched him, glue what's left."

Sabine got to work on stitching, her hands moving quickly and methodically.

"Hera hold compressions." Kanan instructed. She stopped, looking at the monitor. There was no improvement.

"Blast! Kanan you've gotta find that bleeder! BP is still dropping! You've got about forty seconds."

"What then?"

"Kanan you know what happens when BP gets too low." Hera had a serious look on her face, but she was determined. Sabine had all but given up, but kept going just because, if he really did have a chance, she didn't want to give up on him. She had moved onto gluing.

Kanan looked at the man's abdomen, searching for swelling or bruising. Nothing was obvious. "Kriff!" He blurted, and knew how bad everyone was when Hera and Sabine didn't react to it. Kanan checked the monitor. His BP was 90/40, his heart rate in the 180s. "Blast!" The Force told him he was a lost cause.

"Nothing in the legs or abdomen or torso. Have you checked his head?"

"A hemorrhage…" Hera looked at the man, looking up at Sabine. She put her hand up. "You can stop." Kanan could almost feel Hera's agony at having to let him go.

"Hera-"

She brushed him off, straightening. "Work on the other patients. I'll stay with him until the end." She didn't look at him, which meant she was hiding tears.

"I'm staying too. The droids are done on everyone else." It was true. As the man was dying, the droids had finished their work with the other four criticals. He looked around and saw that one was even moved down to serious. They were now cleaning up the mess that the blood had caused. At the moment, there was no one else but them.

Hera's grip on the table "Then go wash off."

"No. I'm not as bloody. Sabine, please?" Kanan asked.

"Alright. Are you okay?" She directed the question at both of them.

"Yes." Hera's voice was flat.

"We'll be alright, thank you. You really shouldn't be around for this."

Sabine nodded, unable to look at them as she walked past them. Before she walked out, she tossed her bloodied gloves into the biohazard bin. She stifled a single sob into her arm as she walked out, before giving a shaky sigh.

"She won't be out of her room for a couple of days now." Hera said. Her eyes had drifted to the man's face.

"We did everything we could." Kanan pulled his gloves off as he spoke, throwing them into the bin, before going behind Hera and putting his hands on her shoulders.

"I can't touch you."

Without a word, Kanan took off her gloves as well, and then her gown, throwing them in the bin as well, before shedding his own. "Hera." He said into her ear.

"Don't," was all she could say.

"Don't what?" All Kanan did was hold her, knowing she needed it, even though she didn't want him to see her like that. "Sometimes we can only do so much. A hemorrhage in the brain stem? There was nothing we could do. He was too far gone when we brought him here."

Hera reached up to her shoulders, clasping onto Kanan's hands. "Thanks, love…"

"I know how hard this is for you. This is just as hard for me, too. I know. I'm so sorry Hera. I promise you though we did all that we could."

"I know." She let herself sniffle, but that was all before she regained her composure. The machines began to scream at them as the man flatlined. Hera let out an agonized gasp, turning away from it and covering her mouth. She was fighting tears as hard as she could. "That's nine."

"I'll tell the boy." Kanan suggested.

"No, I will. I'm the one who couldn't save him." Hera walked quickly out of the med bay, down the still open ramp. Kanan quickly followed.

"Hera, we all did."

She shook her head. "Doesn't matter."

"You know it does." Their feet hit the grass.

Hera raised her head. "Neeko Alvis." A little boy gasped, no taller than three feet, tears still shining on his face. He bolted over to the two.

Kanan's stomach rolled.

Hera kneeled down. "I need you to come with me."

"Why?" Neeko demanded.

"Because I need to have a conversation with you, a private one."

"Can I see my dad?"

"Not right now. In a little bit."

"But he's alive right? Right!" The child demanded, backing up a step. His breaths became faster.

Kanan kneeled, looking at him. He reached his hand out but it was slapped away.

"No! He's dead, isn't he!"

"Kid, I'm sorry. But you've gotta be really strong right now."

"He's dead! He's dead!" The boy started to sob again.

 _Ezra please… let me in! I need you! I really need you!_

Hera nodded. "He is. I'm so sorry, Neeko."

Neeko screamed, almost falling to the ground. Kanan reached out to steady him, but he caught himself. "No! You killed him!" He looked at Kanan with hate and fear and grief. He shook his head.

"No, but we tried to save him. We _tried_ , kid. I know what it feels like to be alone, and I know that you think you're alone, but you're not. I promise, you're not alone."

"Yes I am! I'm an orphan now!" He was sobbing harder.

Kanan's heart wrenched. "Kid-"

Neeko ran off toward the forest.

"Neeko!" Hera yelled in concern. She got up, but Kanan put a hand to her shoulder.

"Let him. Let him burn off some steam." Kanan looked up at the ship. It was going to be a long day, not to mention a long night.

Ezra didn't know how long he had been sleeping, but a hand shaking him woke him up. He groaned in confusion. "Wha-?" He moved his neck and was met with a lance of pain. "Mm, oww."

"Sorry. I didn't want to wake you up but you looked uncomfortable. Come on, I'll help you get to your bed."

Ezra looked up in confusion. "You're not Kanan…"

"You're not awake yet. Come on." Small hands were trying to heft him up.

"Sabine stop… I'm comfortable…"

"You're a thief, not an actor."

"I should probably get up." Ezra tried standing and his left leg went out. "Stupid leg. Must'a fell asleep."

"Come on. Where do you want to go?"

"Med bay. Is my friend okay?"

"Which patient is he?"

"Small. My age…"

"I should have guessed. He's okay. They got him stabilized. He's in serious condition. He's awake."

"What!" Ezra whipped his head to the right so fast that it cracked. A lance of pain went all the way down his back. "Ow!" He yelped, smacking it. "How do you know his condition?"

"He's been drunkenly flirting with me. I was going to just stay in my room and pain but figured that the people should see something other than durasteel, might make them feel better. He asked for you so I went to find you."

Ezra took off to the med bay, Sabine following him. "How do you know him?"

"I'd seen him around town on Tatooine. He was an orphan like me. We were the same age, so, we became friends."

"That's sweet. How did he wind up here?"

"No idea. I'm going to ask him." Ezra turned the corner to the med bay, almost walking too fast for the door to open in time. He looked around expectantly. Like Sabine had said, his friend was sitting up.

"Leo!" He yelled.

The boy startled, his heart rate jumping for two beats on the monitor. "Whoa! Who the blast?" His eyes were unfocused, but when he made out Ezra's face, he grinned. "Oh, the pretty one did bring you! Where's your dad?"

"Dead, you know that." Ezra walked over to him as he spoke.

"Oh I thought the guy who saved me was your adoptive. My bad."

"He is kind of like our dad." Sabine said.

"Oh! So you two are like brother and sister. Haha, pretty one, you lie! You said he was your boyfriend!"

"To get you off my back. I have a name!"

"Sabine, yeah, yeah. Pretty one is better! Ezzy what do you say!"

"Ezzy?" Sabine snorted.

"He's drugged." Ezra turned pink.

"Noo no I'm not too drugged to remember my nickname for you! Hahaha! Ezzy bessy little long haired fella!"

"That's it, Sabine, I need a pillow!"

The girl only laughed, clearly entertained.

"You can't have mine!" Leo laughed.

"So what are you going by now, Leo?"

"I'm still going by Leo. I like it. I see you haven't changed yours yet."

"And I'm not going to."

"What was your name before?" Sabine cut in.

"Many names! I had Tras once. I liked it but it got old fast."

"I liked Mennatar." Ezra said.

"I hated that! I can't believe I called myself that. And then I had to stick with it!"

"Remember when you passed yourself off as a girl?"

"That was so funny, I can't believe anyone fell for that."

"Yeah because I helped you!" Ezra exclaimed.

Sabine's eyebrows rose. "A girl? Should I ask why?"

"No!" Leo shouted, at the same time that Ezra said, "Yes!"

She chuckled, other things on her mind. "I can hear it later." She picked up a discarded paint brush and dipped it in the can, getting to work again.

A warbling rang out, getting closer to the med bay. Leo turned to Ezra. "What's that?"

"Chop. He's like our pet."

Chopper clearly didn't like being called a pet. He had been within earshot and as soon as he got into the room he gave Ezra an ear full. Leo laughed, clearly entertained. Ezra turned to Sabine, who was grinning.

 _Meanie! Meanie! Mean face! Bad Ezra! Bad! No pet! Friend! I friend! No pet! No pet! NO PET! ME HURT YOU! Me hurt you meanie! Me taze you!_

"Whoa what!" Ezra exclaimed, putting his feet on the bed and tucking them away. "No way! You stay away from me!"

Chopper warbled closer. _Me taze, me taze, me taze you! Bad bad bad boy! Me taze me hurt!_ A low buzzing rang out.

"Hera! Kanan! Someone! Sabine, aren't you going to stop him?!" Ezra demanded.

"No thanks. You kind of asked for it. He's _not_ a pet."

"I'm going to be charred in about five seconds here!"

Just as he said that, Leo laughed and pushed him off the bed. Ezra went flying, toppling into Chopper, landing a direct hit to the taser.

Without meaning to, Ezra let out a scream as 1000 joules of energy raged through him. He was laying on top of the toppled Chopper, his hands clenched around Chopper's frame and unable to draw himself off of the taser. He screamed again. It was enough to get the attention of Kanan, who came running. Distantly Ezra could hear a paint brush fall.

"Okay, you're okay." Sabine hauled Ezra to his feet, off of Chopper's taser.

"He couldn't have retracted it!" Ezra demanded, still shaking from the energy burst. His chest stung from burns.

Kanan burst into the room. "Ezra!"

"Chopper started it!"

Kanan's eyes narrowed. "I see I should get Hera."

"No!" Ezra protested, as Chopper warbled.

"Then you two both keep it down. Do I need to remind you that these patients need _rest_ , not two stupid kids banging around? We're already at capacity, we don't need someone else being admitted. Is that understood?"

"Yes Kanan." Ezra grumbled.

He walked further into the room. "Are you alright?" He pointed the question at Leo.

"I'm fine, thanks. These three were just entertaining me." He laughed, before wincing, his bp spiking slightly.

"Where does it hurt?"

"Just my stomach, it's fine. It's just bruising." Leo said quickly. The Force said he was lying.

"Let me see." Kanan said, rolling up the kid's shirt. "No bruising, which is a good sign. Do you have nausea?"

"No, I don't."

Noticing Ezra's mind was open, he brushed his signature against his padawan's. _Do you think something's wrong?_

 _Wrong? Medically? It's just a stomach ache, it could be from the medicine._

 _Don't tell me the Force isn't tell you something is wrong._

 _I can feel it… What though?_

 _That's what we're going to find out. You know him best._

"Does this hurt?" Kanan pressed on his stomach.

"N-ouch!" He winced, but his blood pressure didn't spike.

"Okay," Kanan nodded.

"So, I wanted to ask you something." Leo said quickly.

"Okay, go ahead." Kanan sat on the bed. "What's going on?"

"How did you take my shirt off without touching it? Was it with your mind or something? I've only heard that Jedi can do that but… well, there aren't any more of them."

Alarms spiked for both master and padawan.

 _Who is this kid?_ Kanan demanded.

 _He's my friend! There's something wrong!_ "Leo!" Ezra almost yelled.

His blood pressure dropped a good ten points, and then another five. "What, Ezra?"

"What's going on! You're speaking too fast like you're trying to get your words in. You're _not_ in any pain, I know that's a lie! You're too drugged."

Leo's heart rate sky rocketed. The more the machine's went crazy, the more pale he got. "I'm not I'm sorry. I mean, I am…!"

"Sabine, could you please get Leo some food?" Kanan asked, and a look of confusion passed over her face. He signed _you need to leave. Bugged._

Her eyes widened. "Sure. I'll be back."

"Thank you. I appreciate it. You too Chop."

Both of them left quickly. Kanan turned to Leo again, sympathy in his eyes. "I can tell when a person is scared without even looking at them. You look horrified. Tell me what's going on kid. Ezra and I can _help_ you."

"Nothing! Ju-just answer the question, are you a J-a Jedi?" Tears were almost spilling out of his eyes.

Kanan put a hand to the boy's cheek. "Listen to me. Look at me. If you think we're gonna lose you, you have no idea who you just bumped into. Whoever is listening in, whoever you're talking for, I'm talking to them now." Kanan's face screwed up and his voice got harsh. "You _leave_ this kid alone. Whatever you did to him we're going to reverse it! Whatever information you think you've got, it's not enough!"

Leo's oxygen levels dropped and he started wheezing.

"Force, how much control do they have over you?"

He started crying. "I don't know!"

"Come on, Leo, look at me. We've got you. You're gonna pull through. Breathe for me okay. Just like a few hours ago." Kanan tipped his bed back a little to improve his airway.

"I'm scared Kanan."

"I know, but you don't have to worry." He rubbed his hair in a futile attempt to calm the boy. "We're going to x-ray you and that's going to show us how and where these bastards are controlling you from."

His pulse dropped into the 50s.

Kanan grit his teeth.

"Leo!" Ezra exclaimed. "You sleemos! You leave him alone! Whatever you did to him we're gonna stop it you hear me!"

"Kid, don't!" Kanan said. "Let me talk to them, alright?" He turned to Leo. "I'll answer your question if you bring his pulse up."

"Th-they s-ay-ah!" He writhed.

"Leo…!" Kanan pushed on his shoulder.

He started to cry again. "Ow! They say answer!"

"Yes! My answer is yes, I am a Jedi, and you already know that! What's your next question!" The med droid rolled up behind them. _Focus on foreign materials along the cns and cardiac system._ He signed to it. The droid began the x-ray. Five seconds later, it beeped.

 _Image saved._

"Look at that, kid. Tell me what you see." Kanan tapped his head after saying it, and Ezra nodded.

He got his answer three seconds later. _Force!_

 _What?_

 _It's everywhere! It's like he's half droid! Around his heart! His lungs! His spine! Elbows and knees!_

Leo's heart rate began to even out. He started to cry again. Kanan sat next to him once more. "No, no, no. Don't let those bad thoughts start getting to you. Look at me, I look trustworthy, right?" Kanan hoped that the fear was out of his eyes.

"S-sort of…"

"You can trust me. Like you trusted me earlier today. I saved you once? I'm going to do it again. Okay?"

"Okay."

"What did they say this time?"  
"The scary one is back… he says that, he says if you rand your padawan don't come to him in surrender in the next three days, or if you try to get it out of me, he'll stop my heart personally…"

"What's your name?" Kanan demanded slowly.

"He says Kallus… w-who is this guy…?"

Kanan had to force his jaw not to clench.

"No one that you need to worry about, try to rest, alright? Please, don't worry." His voice was clipped. Anger came at him in a wave, started by his padawan.

"He's laughing now… he says that he can see how scared I am… that here I am lying in your ship and I still belong to them, that you still can't save me." Leo looked up at Kanan with dead eyes. He had accepted it.

"Don't you dare give into them, kid. There's still hope for you. Don't you dare give up. We're going to save you. We're going to save you, I promise." Kanan sounded determined.

Leo nodded. "I'm trying…"

Ezra spoke for the first time in what felt like ages. "You're doing better than I would, Mennatar."

Leo almost laughed. Instead, tears came to his eyes again. "I'll pull through, I've been through worse. Don't worry about me. I know I'm in good hands. Especially with this guy. He must be something scary to get someone else so scary involved."

"Oh trust me, I am. And guess what, I don't give up on my friends." Kanan put his hand on Leo's shoulder. "I'm not going to lose you. You're a pawn in this, but you're not expendable to us." He paused, his voice growing rough. "You listen to me Kallus, you won't have him for long. He might be bugged but he's still with us. I don't care what you've done to him, he's going to pull through. And if he doesn't, you will feel the full force of our anger. That's not a threat, Kallus. That's a promise."

Kanan paused, waiting for the response.

"He says… if you don't find him in three days and give yourselves up, he's going to have my heart explode in my chest. He says, that's a promise."  
 *****Okay guys, poll! How would you like to see Zeb's hand blown off? And as for the story... reviews? Death threats?**


	5. Control

*****Writers block is a sleemo... thanks for your patience with me! Midterms were this week and I had a 12 hour shift to boot. Life... have a nice night or day whenever you read this!*****

Ezra was pacing back and forth angrily in his room. "Blast, blast, that sleemo, that kriffing vile son of a bitch! Karabast!" He knew that he had to get his anger under control. He could tell that it was affecting Kanan when he came into his mind.

 _Ezra._

It was just his name, but he could tell exactly what his master wanted in the one word alone.

 _I am_ not _calming down!_ He shouted into the Force. Everything that had happened in the past day was beginning to take its toll on him, and he wasn't sure how much longer he could control it.

 _I wasn't going to ask you to do that._

 _Then what!_

 _I was going to ask you to come into the cockpit, we need to have a meeting._

Waves of even more anger flowed off him. _About what, where we're going to dump his body?_ He demanded.

 _After what I said to him? I was serious. We're going to save him. I'm not about to let him die. Neither is the rest of the crew. We're having a meeting to discuss our best method of attack. Hera has come up with a strategy. She's the one who's going to be leading the meeting._

 _Fine! I'll be there soon just let me get changed. I'm still bloody._

Without another word into the Force, he took off his orange jumpsuit and left only his undershirt on, deciding he didn't care if he wore nothing else. Calm in the Force wrapped around him. Knowing it was Kanan's doing he almost pushed it away, but decided that he needed it, letting it slow his heart and relax his jaw. He took a couple of deep breaths before walking out into the hall. His head turned to the medbay, but no sound was coming from it, just steady beeping of four machines. Ezra sighed. Seeing his friend like that, even though he hadn't seen him in years, still ate at him. It ate at him for what the Empire had done to him, churning his stomach. It was disgusting. He was a human being, and they turned him into something else entirely. And they had done so without thought, without remorse. He would fight them without remorse.

 _Kid, I can feel your thoughts getting violent. Don't let yourself go there. I'm just as angry that this happened. We're going to get them back, okay?_

Ezra started to walk to the cockpit. His fists clenched. _And is that really good enough? Who knows how many people the Empire has done this to._

 _The point is we're going to stop it from happening again._

Ezra physically shook his head, pausing in the hall and glaring down. Waves of anger flowed off of him again. _You're putting your head in the sand again. You're making this a footnote._ Ezra could feel through the bond how irritated with him Kanan was getting. He didn't care. _You don't even care about him, you're just pissed that this happened._ Ezra snapped at him.

"Ezra! That's enough! Get over to the cockpit already!" Kanan yelled.

The teen glowered up at his master and walked over to him.

"Deep breaths, kid. Don't let your anger get the better of you." He advised, calming himself as he spoke, unclenching his own fists.

"I know." Although he didn't very much want to, Ezra obliged, knowing it would be better while discussing things to have a calm head. He walked further into the cockpit, noticing that Hera was standing in the front of her holopad, Chopper at the controls of the ship, and Zeb and Sabine were sitting at the table that the holopad was placed on, Zeb's fur a mess and bags under his eyes, like Hera had woken him up. Sabine was looking at the table, obviously deep in thought and too wrapped up to take notice when Ezra stepped in.

Hera looked up and took a step closer to the boy. "Ezra, are you okay?"

"Oh yeah, I'm great. My friend has explosives in him, I saw people be disfigured today, and now we're discussing what to do about where to dump Leo but yeah aside from that, I'm great!"

"Ezra, I have an idea how to save him. A couple of ideas, actually. I wanted to discuss them with everyone before I went through with one."

"Well, what are they!" Ezra demanded. He wanted this to be over with already, he wanted his friends, not just Leo but everyone else on the ship, to be safe.

Kanan squeezed his arm in comfort, feeling the anxiety that he was letting into the Force.

Ignoring his outburst, Hera continued calmly. She needed to be level headed for all of them. "Our first option, and the one that I like least, is to find Kallus and have his men remove the devices. That's only a last resort though."

"Tell me that's not your best plan." Ezra muttered.

"The other option is to remove the devices in two days time."

"What! Why two days?" He demanded.

"We can do it right now if we wanted to." Sabine chimed in. "Plus if we did it now, they wouldn't be expecting it, and there would be less security on the speaker buds they've got in his ears."

Hera sighed. "I've been doing research into the devices they used. I need to find more out about it but it looks like they're prototype, not much is known about them. Chop hacked into the Empire's system and from what he's gathered, all of it is remotely controlled. They can control Leo's heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, and all of his movements. The bomb is only the vicinity of his heart. The metal is attached to his jugular and carotid as they leave the heart, and they've replaced the valves in his lungs with their metal ones, to control his respiration. To control his limbs the Empire placed electrodes on his joints, through his muscles, and around his T-4 and L-8."

"It's worse than we thought." Ezra breathed, his stomach twisting in horror.

"They listen in with microphones they placed in front of his eardrums."

"Force," Kanan muttered.

Ezra felt slightly dizzy. "Do you have any idea how we're going to do this?"

"That wasn't the worst part." Hera looked down, setting her jaw. That was never a good sign.

"What's the worse part?" Kanan asked, standing up straighter.

"All of the metals, if they're tampered with an alarm will immediately go off and trigger the explosives around Leo's heart."

"Is there any way to get around it?" Kanan questioned. He wasn't going to lose hope, neither of them were, despite how this conversation was turning out.

Ezra couldn't believe what he was hearing. Before Hera had the chance to respond to him, he blurted, "So there really is no way to save him!"

"Not necessarily. I was going to answer Kanan's question, yes, there is a way to get around it. Chopper can hack into the system and prevent the alarms from being tripped. However, that's where things get even riskier. He has five minutes only before he's spied, and once he's spied, those alarms are going to go off. Not only that, he'll have a virus downloaded into him, and that's where we need to do more searching. We don't know what virus it is or what it will do to him, if it's even reversible."

 _Do risk. You fast!_ Chopper warbled.

"No way," Kanan said. "Chopper, there's no way we can do the entire surgery in five minutes."

"Maybe if we do it one at a time, do different surgeries?" Sabine suggested.

Hera shook her head sadly. "I wish that were an option. When they notice part of the system gone they'll detonate the explosives. We have five minutes."

"And five minutes isn't possible." Ezra snapped, his arms folded across his chest. His face was a mask but for his eyes. They shimmered with fear and something else that made Kanan's heart ache. He turned to his padawan.

"There's still hope. We're going to come up with something."

Ezra shook his head fiercely. "I think we both know that you won't. What could you possibly think of? Kallus wants us, he's going to get us, unless we want to risk Leo's life doing the blasted surgery."

"Ezra you know as well as I do that the second Kallus has his eyes on us Leo is a dead man. This is the only way for him."

"Well it's not sounding like it from the way you're talking!" Ezra could feel his face heat.

"Calm down kid." Zeb muttered. "How well do you even know this guy?"

"I knew him on the streets! And the fact that the Empire is doing this to him…!" _Because of me…!_

Hera turned to Zeb. "Don't be insensitive, Zeb!" She scolded.

"What! He's just some dumb street kid in the wrong place at the wrong time! I honestly don't know what the fuss is about!"

"Would you rather it be you in the medbay?"

Zeb's eyes narrowed into a glare, but he didn't continue. Ezra found it was the best time to slip out of the cockpit.

"Ezra-" Kanan called.

"It sounds like the meeting is over." He snapped over his shoulder, before pushing and turning around to face them. "It sounds like you two have already decided. Wait some more and find Kallus and find out more about this stupid metal, check to see if you've missed things. Wouldn't want him to blow up on the ship." Ezra muttered, his fists in balls again, and turned around, storming to the medbay. The door swung open, and he looked at Leo's sleeping form.

In a way, Zeb was right. He was just some street kid like Ezra that had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. And on the other hand, he had tried to take on the Empire by himself, and this had happened to him, probably without his knowing. _So that's how they knew about the bomb._ Ezra thought to himself grimly. That was how they had been able to move it to another place. It wasn't fair. He had been close to striking a blow and the Empire had out maneuvered him. They probably even knew that the _Ghost_ was landing on that particular date, all they had to do was sit back and wait. Ezra shook his head angrily. The kid was a rebel, his friend, that had saved his life numerous times, and this was where it landed him, because he had gone and done it alone, because he had been captured.

Leo stirred.

Ezra turned his back and was about to walk out of med bay when Leo croaked, "You come and watch me sleep often?"

Ezra's voice was monotonous. "Did I get my sarcasm from you or you from me?" He didn't move an inch.

"I think it was a little bit of both." He chuckled. "So, it's bad I'm guessing. That's why you look like you do. You look like you just duced yourself."

"Hey!" Ezra exclaimed, whirling around.

Leo was smiling a little, which the boy could hardly believe. "Just saying, that stain on the back of your pants looks pretty suspicious."

Ezra slapped the back of his pants, turning, trying to see what Leo was talking about.

This time the boy laughed harder, a full smile cracking his face. "Made you look! You're still too easy to fool!"

"The Force said you were lying…" Ezra muttered.

"Well I don't have the Force or whatever you call it but I know you're ly-ing… ow! Static! Karabast, that stings!" Leo grabbed his ears.

 _Kanan!_ Ezra shouted through the bond.

His master responded immediately. _I'm already coming into the medbay. I won't be talking, they didn't bug his eyes so they can't see me. What's going on?_

 _I don't know, we were just talking and all of a sudden his ears started to sting._ Ezra looked over at Leo. _Force!_ He yelled, in surprise and fear.

 _What happened?_

 _His ears are_ bleeding, _Kanan!_

 _That's a side effect of it sometimes, it's alright, it'll stop soon. It's because of the static._ The medbay door slid open again and the Jedi walked in. Some of the fear melted off Leo's face, and his heart rate went down.

"My ears are bleeding." He said, uncertainly.

"I know," Ezra responded. "It's okay, it's a side effect of the static. It'll stop soon."

"Are you sure?" Leo questioned.

Ezra turned to Kanan and did air quotes. "I am."

The boy's eyes widened in understanding and he nodded. His heart rate jumped for a good eight beats. "Kriff!" He swore, jumping. "Kriff, blast!" His voice cracked.

 _What's the matter?_

"What's the matter?"

"It, it's Kallus, he's back."

"What's he saying?"

"He says, hello Jedi. It's good to speak to you again… I see that certain words trigger our machines. Have you had any progress on finding me?"

 _We have, we should locate you in the next day or so._

"We haven't."

Kanan gave Ezra a piercing glare, one that said _we'll talk later._ which he ignored. The wave of irritation pointed at him was harder to.

"You know, it's funny… I only hear one of you, but I know that there are the both of you in the room. Leo calmed down shortly after the door opened and shut, but the other person hasn't introduced himself. How rude of you, Jedi."

Kanan grit his teeth. "Kallus." He remarked coolly.

"I really do hope that wasn't an introduction."

"It's nearly zero one hundred. You should be letting Leo rest, not scaring him further."

"Well I'm afraid that's on you, Jarrus. You're the one who walked into the room in the first place."

Kanan grit his teeth harder, almost rolling his eyes. "If you'll excuse me, I think that it's time for us to go."

Leo went pale. "K-anan…" He trailed off.

Kanan walked over and sat on his bed again, concern in his eyes. "What's the matter? What did he say?"

"That, that it's time for a demonstration… what, what's he talking about?"

"I don't know. Kallus, this is no time to demonstrate who has the power in this situation. We all know that it's you. You don't need to go on."

"He says, I know, but I will. You pulled me out of bed, I'll put you into one for…" Leo trailed off. "Get away from me! Kanan, get away! Get out of the room! Get away from me, leave me, go!" His heart rate climbed with his fear.

"What did he say kid? I'm not leaving you."

"He said that he's going to put you in a bed for at least a week. Kanan, I don't know how but you need to go before he makes good on it."

"Leo, I'm addressing Kallus now, alright? Leave him alone! You can do whatever you want to me when we see each other next, but don't you dare do it through him and don't you dare do it now."

Leo stiffened. "He says… it's a little late for that. I'm mad already." A look of fear passed across his face again. "I, Kanan! I can't relax my arm." It was still rigid on his leg, the bicep bulging out, even as Kanan and Ezra watched his fist got tighter and tighter. Leo gave a horrified sob. "I can't believe this… this can't be happening…! This isn't real, this isn't real! My, _arm_! My arm! I can't move it! What's happening to me!"

Ezra rushed to him, grabbing onto his hand and trying to open his palm, to no avail. As soon as his fingers touched Leo's skin, Leo's left arm shot out, the hand turning to a fist and catching him on the jaw. There was an audible pop as one side as dislocated. Leo and Ezra screamed at the same time.

Kanan took a deep breath, calming himself and sharpening his senses. He dove into the Force, reaching out to it, using it to push Ezra back at the same time he kept Leo's hands firmly against the bed. There was nothing the machines could do about it. The Force was too strong. Leo began sobbing.

"Shut up, shut up! Stop talking! Stop it! No, no-!"

Kanan rubbed his back. "Whatever he's saying, it's alright. It's not going to go on forever. I'm right here. Don't listen to him."

Leo didn't even acknowledge him. "Stop it!" There was a pause, and he screamed in horror. "Kanan! Stop! Kanan, whatever you're doing to hold me in place _stop it this second_! Stop it blast it! Stop!" Leo begged.

"What? Leo, tell me, what's going on?"

"He's torturing someone! And he's making me hear it! Please, please! I can't listen to this, please, just let me up!"

Kanan shook his head. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry Leo."

"Do it! He's begging me!"

Ezra spoke through the Force. _Kanan, I'll give him a sedative the second you stop with the Force. It'll work._

 _Don't make me regret this._ Kanan agreed quickly, and Ezra could feel his master's pain and sorrow at what was happening.

Ezra snatched an already filled syringe of sedative off an exam table and pressed it into Leo's neck. "Everything's okay." He assured. _Now!_ He shouted through the Force.

As soon as he felt Kanan lift the paralysis over Leo, he began to inject the sedative.

It wasn't fast enough.

Leo's neck twitched, snapping part of the needle off in his neck. He punched Kanan in the temple, so hard it knocked him off the bed and caused him to hit his head on the monitors. He laid on the ground, too stunned to use the Force and almost unconscious for a couple of seconds. Those couple of seconds were all Leo needed.

He snatched the syringe from Ezra's hands and before he could Force throw it from him, Leo was already stabbing the needle into his arm, a full four seconds after Kanan had lightened the Force. Ezra pushed it out of his vein, but not before the rush of liquid surged into him. He felt the effects immediately, stumbling to the ground, crashing into something hard and pointed. His arm screamed in protest.

And then Leo was on top of him, throwing violent punches on his face, keeping his already weakened head down with his other hand, nearly strangling him. Ezra had about eight seconds left before he was completely unconscious. He looked at Leo's eyes. They looked so out of place that it burned itself into Ezra's memory. Terror. Disbelief. Sickness. Desperation. Apology. All were present in his eyes. He was fighting for control, but control was impossible. The Empire was in complete command of his body.

Four seconds.

Pain was starting to intensify in his face. He felt something in the Force, buoying him to consciousness, relieving some of the pain, but it wasn't a complete fix. He felt his master's signature strengthen, move.

"I'm so sorry Ezra." Leo gasped.

Ezra eyes rolled as they closed, opening his mouth to respond, but could force no words out.

 _Ezra! Hang on kid._

Before Ezra lost consciousness, the last thing he was aware of was Leo being thrown off of him, and a hand supporting his neck to a more natural position, and someone calling his name.

 *****Basically all of my chapters end with cliffees. #sorrynotsorry I need SOMETHING to keep you guys coming back*****


	6. Endless Scream

*****Some fluff, some laughs, some blood, some death. Basically every chapter of mine in a nutshell. If you formed an emotional attachment to Leo in the past couple chapters (like luke to obi-wan in the 3rd movie for some reason but that's a whole other rant) I'm very sorry... But life goes on! And life WILL go on... anyway, what day do you guys want me to update on officially? Saturdays, Sundays, Wednesdays? What works for you?*****

When Ezra woke up, he was in his own room, and he could feel eyes on him, and someone else moving around. "Leo…?" He asked, his voice hoarse. He coughed, sitting up with a groan. His head spun and he could barely keep his eyes open, his vision blurred.

"No, you're lying down." A hand gently pressed his chest back down to the bed.

"Nn," he muttered in protest, trying to get up again.

"Ezra." The voice warned.

"Don' wanna… jus lemme see 'im…" The teen shifted, to no avail. His arms and legs may as well have been dead weights.

"Ezra, you're staying put. At _least_ until the sedative wears off." It was Hera this time, and there was no fighting with Hera. Especially when he couldn't even properly open his eyes. Ezra tried anyway.

"I'm fine… lemme up…" Ezra's eyes rolled beneath their lids and he gave a soft groan.

"No, Ezra." Kanan's voice was firm.

The teen realized he was breathing through his mouth, shutting it and licking his lips. When he breathed in through his nose, a whistling ringing out. A confused look crossed his face. "My nose doesn't feel clogged…"

"Ezra, I haven't set the bone yet." Kanan said, his voice carefully clipped.

"They broke my nose…"

"They didn't have time to do much but give you a black eye, crack one of your molars, break your nose, and give you a couple of bruises on your cheek."

"You… know, it wasn't Leo… right?"

Kanan nodded in assurance. "We know, kid. You don't have to worry. We know who was really at fault. How's the arm?" He gestured to his padawan's bandaged and swollen left forearm.

"Must'a, tried to catch myself. It's pr'a'ably as good as your head."

"I'd say a little better. Your arm is just a little bruised and scratched up. You fell on one of the IV stands." He shook his head, having to block off the guilt that he knew was seeping into the Force. Ezra still felt it.

Ezra pushed himself up. "Kanan. Don't you dare blame yourself. We both know who's at fault."

Hera chimed in. "He's right, you know."

"Yeah, I know." Kanan sighed and looked to the Twi'lek. "Hera, how much time before the sedative wears off completely?"

"Maybe half an hour."

The Jedi nodded. "Okay. Ezra, you can see Leo in forty five minutes."

Ezra's eyebrows raised with his voice octave. "But Hera said half a' hour…!"

"My word is final. Don't argue with me, kid. I'm not in the mood."

" _Fiine!_ " Ezra's nose screwed up, before it twitched and he muttered in pain.

"That would be the break." Kanan's lips pursed. "Do you want me to set it now?" He shifted, obviously in discomfort at the thought.

"I can do it. I have more experience with setting bones." Hera suggested, coming closer to the bed.

"I have the Force." Kanan muttered, a small smile turning his lips.

"And I have years."

"He has the Force…" Ezra smiled, his voice still croaking and slurring. "I choose Kanan… I'll be okay…"

Hera sighed. "Alright."

"The Force can help too." Ezra said.

"And it will." Kanan assured. "Are you ready for this kid?"

"Just do it, I've set my leg before."

The Jedi gave a surprised and pained look. "Alright, let's get this over with." Kanan leaned forward, placing his pinky through index fingers of both hands on the bridge of Ezra's nose, keeping his thumbs firmly on his upper lip. In a swift motion, he pushed downward. There were pops beneath his fingers, and he immediately used the Force to ease some of Ezra's pain.

He wound up crying out anyway, jerking backward, pieces of the bone going haywire again. Blood gushed out of his nose on both sides, streaming onto his shirt and bedsheets, dripping down his chin and neck.

"Did that leg bone ever heal right?" Kanan asked, cringing.

"Yeah, it did." Ezra snapped, groaning.

"I'm sorry kid, one more time."

"Aren't I bleeding enough already?" The pain was giving him a headache and the blood he was swallowing was turning his stomach. It was streaming down his face, quickly reddening his teeth and chin.

The Jedi gave Ezra a look of sorrow. "I'm so sorry that I have to do this. Come here…" He took a breath, placing his fingers once more on his padawan's face, drawing them down.

Ezra gave a startled whimper, before clearing his throat. More blood gushed down his face, the smell of iron overwhelming. "I'm bleeding more than when those sleemos beat me up!" He complained.

"It'll stop soon. I've had my nose broken three times in two different places."

"That explains it." Ezra muttered.

"Heey." Kanan almost smiled. He grabbed a rag that Hera had brought in.

"How long have I been out?"

"Just a couple of hours," he started to clean Ezra's face off. "Lay back down. You still need the rest. Taking a beating is hard."

"No kidding." He let his master clean the blood still running down his face. "I can do that myself Kanan."

"And re-injure your nose again? After all of my hard work?"

"Hey!" Hera scolded. "I'm the one who patched up his arm."

"I'm the one who had to reset his nose. Do you know how much turmoil was in the Force when that was happening? How much pain he's still in?"  
"I can imagine."  
"It's not that bad, Kanan." Ezra sighed.

"I'm still cleaning this blood myself. The Force is helping stop the pain and swelling."

"Thanks,"

"It's the least I can do." Guilt again flowed into the Force.

Ezra sighed. "It's not your fault."

"I just keep telling myself that." was all the Jedi said.

By the time 45 minutes were up, Ezra's nose had stopped bleeding, although it had taken a full forty and all the concentration the Jedi had. It was still extremely swollen, nearly doubled in size, but most of the blood was gone from his face. His black eye had gotten darker, as had the bruises on his cheekbone.

"At least the sedative wore off fully." He muttered, wincing when rubbed his face on the wrong side. "Too bad they all but broke my cheek."

"There's not a break but you've got a couple of bone bruises so it'll hurt for awhile." Hera explained.

"Great. No slapping me around you guys."

Hera gave Kanan an accusing look, and Kanan glared back at her. "Never. Zeb would be more likely!"

"I wasn't accusing you."

"Your face was." he muttered.

"No it wasn't!"  
"Hey! No fighting when I've been beat up!" Ezra exclaimed. "How can I rest when I'm listening to that?! Forget it, you two keep fighting, I'm going to go see Leo."

As Ezra was talking Kanan insisted, "We weren't fighting! You haven't heard us really fight before."

"And I assume I don't want to." Ezra said as he slid down off his bunk.

Hera narrowed her eyes at him. "Are you sure you're okay enough to go?"

"Does it look like I'm standing okay?" He didn't snap at her, but the wording was enough to make her eyes go sharp.

"I think he's alright." Kanan chimed in. "He's still in pain but he's well enough to walk around the ship."

"Kanan's right." Ezra gave an irritated sigh as he spoke.

"Hey I was speaking in your defense. A thank you might be nice."

"You want me to thank you for listening to the Force? I didn't think of you as entitled?"

A wave of anger aimed at him was his only response. He thought it was best to change the subject.

"Why was I put in my room?"  
Hera spoke. "The medbay is at capacity, we didn't have any beds for you."

"Oh." Ezra paused. "Well, see you." He walked out the door as he spoke. "Thanks Hera, by the way."

"You're welcome."

 _You're welcome, too._ Kanan said through the bond.

 _I know you're pissed at me._

 _Just a little._

 _Whatever. I'll let you know if Leo and I need any help._

 _I'll know it before you say it._ Kanan chuckled.

Ezra said nothing in response as the medbay door swung open. "Hi Leo."

The boy turned his head to Ezra and a blush immediately took his face. He said nothing in return, instead looking down at his bedsheets.

"It's late, what are you doing up?"

"Same to you." He mumbled, almost too faint to hear.  
"Don't blame yourself for this."

"I don't."

"You know I'm a Jedi in training. I can feel that you're lying. Don't lie to me, and don't blame yourself. I know how hard you were fighting against agent muttonchops and the rest of those sleemos."

Leo laughed, half heartedly but real, turning to face him. "Agent muttonchops?"

Ezra smiled. "It's what some people call Kallus behind his back."

Leo smiled. "Why's that?"  
"Because he has the most hideous muttonchops." Ezra sat on Leo's bed. "I'm not kidding! Imagine the hair length of wookies, combined with bedhead, an inch from the ear to the middle of his face! _That_ is what he looks like!"

Leo laughed hard, unable to stop himself. "You're kidding!"

"No I'm not! I've seen him! Up close and personal! I swear I saw a branch in there!"

Leo was in tears he was laughing so hard. He put his hands to his mouth to muffle his howls, throwing his head back. Ezra didn't stop.

"And you know what, I think that you could light that thing on fire and he wouldn't even notice for a good half an hour! There's so much of it!"

"Ezra! Come on!" He was laughing so hard he could hardly take a breath.

"No way man I'm on a roll! Agent muttonchops is part wookie! He sounds like one too! Whenever we see him and he's startled he makes 'arrr' sound!" Ezra exclaimed, changing his voice to something more nasal, sounding more similar to a seal than a wookie. "Arrr! Arrr! Get out!" He mocked. "I'll blast you into next year! Arrr! Be scared of me! Be scared of the hairless wookie!" Ezra couldn't keep talking. He burst out laughing.

When the two finally caught their breath, it had been about five minutes. Leo was the one to talk first. "Geez Ezra, I couldn't breathe there!"

"Feeling better?"

"I am, thanks. It, it really wasn't my fault…"

"No, it wasn't. We're gonna fix you up soon though. Don't worry."

"Well, considering I only have about two days left in this life, I'd say I'm doing okay."

Ezra glared at him. "You've got a lot more than two days."

Leo paled. "Um, Ezra, maybe it was a bad idea to make fun of Kallus…"

"What's he saying?" _Kanan! We need help! Stay outside the medbay door until I say so!_

"He says you think it's funny to mock me? You ought to know better than that." Leo paused.

 _What do you mean? What's going on?_

 _Leo and I pissed off Kallus._

 _What did you do?!_

 _I was making him laugh, okay! I didn't think the sleemo would be listening in!_

 _He's got him under_ surveillance, _Ezra, what do you expect! I'm outside of the medbay door no-_

"He says, I want to talk to that Jedi again, something has been brought to my attention that I would like to address to him."

 _You need to come in here. Kallus is asking for you._

 _What have you two done…_

The medbay door swung open, Kanan stepping in. "Kallus, you wanted to speak to me?"

There was a pause before Leo spoke. "He said, that was quite fast. I assume your padawan alerted you through the bond, since there was nothing said aloud."

"Kallus what do you want?" Kanan snapped.

"I wanted to talk about your infernal piece of scrap."

"I'm sorry?" Kanan was honestly confused, until the Force whispered _Chopper._

 _Blast, Chop was caught._ He muttered through the bond.

"Your stupid excuse for a droid. C, one, one, oh, p I believe? Oh that's right, you call him Chopper. What an old model. It would almost be a favor to get you to buy a newer model. I don't know, I suppose I'm feeling generous."

"It would be quite generous for you to leave this kid alone and deactivate the explosives."

"That's not going to happen, Kanan." Leo's eyes flashed with nerves.

The Force was making Ezra worried, sending a feeling of imminent danger. _Kanan, can you feel that?_

 _Get Hera, Ezra._ Kanan's voice was solemn.

 _What's going on? This is scaring me._

 _Don't worry. It's just precaution. Tell her 1044. She'll understand._

Ezra tried to lighten the mood. _When are you two going to tell me your codes?_

 _Shortly after never. Those are for us to know._

 _Fine._

 _Also, tell her to tell Chop that he has less than five minutes now._

 _Okay, this is really scaring me._

 _I can feel your fear._ Kanan pushed calm and reassurance through the Force. _Just take deep breaths. You trust Hera and I with your life, trust us with his. We know what we're doing, especially with the medical aspect. She and I have been doing surgeries for years. Hera taught me how._

"He's not talking now… I mean he is but, not to me. I can't make it out."

"It's alright." Kanan assured, giving Leo's shoulder a squeeze. "Are you alright from earlier? Did I hurt you when I tossed you?"

"No, I'm okay, thanks." Leo's heart rate began to drop, ten points, then another ten, along with his bp. "Kanan?" He squeaked. "I'm dizzy…"

"You're alright. Let me talk to Kallus, alright?"

"He, he's still not talking. I think he just left the room."

Kanan nodded to Ezra, who could hardly move his feet, staring at Leo's monitors with growing worry. "Ezra," he urged.

"S-sorry." He mumbled, turning and walking out the door. He stumbled to the cockpit, to find that Hera wasn't there. Chopper was, messing around with a holochess game, having recharged earlier. Knowing what had happened to him earlier, Ezra doubt that even at the late hour she was sleeping. "Chopper, you don't have five minutes anymore. That's all I know. Where's Hera?"

 _Don't know. Use Jedi powers._

Ezra glared at him, running off to the kitchen. "Hera?"

 _Kid, hurry!_ There was worry in Kanan's voice, and that was never a good sign.

"Hera!" His voice must have been higher than usual, because someone walked into the kitchen.

"She's in the fresher for a couple of minutes, what's going on?" It was Sabine.

Ezra whirled around. "I don't know, Kallus is hurting Leo again though. I need to find Hera, tell her a message." Ezra took off toward the fresher, ducking around her.

"Don't you dare think about going in there!" Sabine scolded.

Ezra called over his shoulder, "You're going to be needed too! I have a feeling!"

"Okay, I'll make my way there."

"Don't let the doors swing open, no matter what!" Ezra was almost running, a hallway down from the fresher.

"Okay?" Sabine called, walking off to the medbay in confusion. Her eyes were narrowed in worry.

Ezra made it to the door of the fresher, almost colliding with Hera as she walked out. "What's the matter?" She asked.

"I don't know, 1044!"

Hera nodded seriously. "Okay. Ezra, we need to do the surgery _now_. For whatever reason Kallus has moved up his schedule. We need to do the surgery now." She took off quickly through the hallway, ducking into the cockpit. "Chopper! You gotta hack and you've gotta do it in the next minute. Get into the system and as soon as the machine senses something, cut it off! You need to do it in four minutes tops." Hera flew out of the cockpit toward the medbay, almost mowing Ezra down, who had stood too close to her back. As that happened Chop warbled his response.

Ezra shouted through the bond, _Kanan! How bad is he?_

 _Tell Hera 35/70, 50 bpm._

"35 over 70, 50 bpm."

 _And dropping! Blast!_

 _How fast?_

"Okay, I can work with that." Hera said, as Kanan said, _pulse will be gone in a minute fast!_

"Dropping, gone in a minute."

"Can Kanan keep him alive?"

"How?" Ezra demanded.

"Using the Force. Keep his heart beating?"  
 _Kanan! Can you keep his heart beating?_

 _I can give you another minute!_

"For one minute."

They were at the medbay doors, Sabine standing nervously near them. Hera burst through into the medbay, trailed by both teens. Inside, the machines were screaming. Leo's pulse had dropped to 40, his bp 15/50. Ezra's mouth dropped open, no sound falling out. Kanan turned, about to take command of the situation, but Hera beat him to it, putting her hand up and finger to her lips. She pointed at Sabine, putting her hands to her ears and then making a ball with her index finger and thumb, before pointing at Leo. Sabine nodded and ran to one of the drawers, opening it and pulling out two ear plugs, sticking them in Leo's ears. He had lost consciousness from such a sudden blood pressure drop, his face deathly pale and head lolled slightly to the side.

As she was doing that Hera signaled to the med droid. It whirred to life. "Kanan, we have-"

She didn't get to finish, the machines giving one final long scream.

One endless scream.

Hera turned to the monitors to see that it was as she had feared, there was no beat to complete the beep.  
Leo had flat lined.

 *****To make up for the death, here's a punny joke: "My friend and I bonded over rebels!" Anyone? No? Ok, I'm gonna go hide now... But blame Kallus, he's the sleemo!*****


	7. Virus

*****I love all of you and I'm so sorry for this. I was going to post on Thanksgiving but then... life... Enjoy! I love you all so much, thank you for supporting and sticking with me. The fanbase I have is incredible. SHOUT OUT TO BREADTHIEF98! You HAVE to go and read her story Dinner to Die For! And wish her luck during Finals! Really, give her a DM!*****

Ezra stared in horror at the machines, then down at Leo, trying to make sense of what was happening. "Leo… Leo!" He rushed the boy. Sabine grabbed Ezra around the waist, trying to draw him towards her. He Force blew her back. "Kanan, do something!" He yelled, his voice cracking.

"Ezra get out of here!" Kanan commanded.

"No! He's my friend. I need to do something!"

"Hera and Sabine and I have got this, you need to _go_!"

" _No_!" Ezra shrieked. "No! I have to save him!" His voice cracked. "He was trying to fight them! This is my fault! Blast, let me help…!" Tears were threatening his eyes.

Kanan gave a frustrated sigh, still doing chest compressions. "Hera, catch him."

"What?" Ezra demanded, as Hera moved behind him. "You're not putting me t-"

As he spoke, Kanan pushed a huge wave of exhaustion at his padawan, pushing it straight into his mind. Ezra was out cold before he hit Hera's arms.

"Med droid get patient on bypass!" The twi'lek shouted, laying Ezra down. The metal whirred to life, going over to the dead boy. With a twang, two tubes sprang out of its insides, sticking into the boy, between the ribs, to access the heart. "Is it working?" She asked Kanan.

"How should I know? I don't know anything about bypass! You haven't taught me."

"Droid is doing the job of the heart and lungs. Chopper's making sure the bomb doesn't go off. Gotta remove that first." Hera grabbed a scalpel.

Sabine stepped forward. "What do I do?" she asked.

"Focus on the ones in the joints. Elbows, hands, knees." As she said that the Twi'lek reached over the droid's tubes and pushed it through the skin, drawing a line down the sternum. "Kanan throw me the sternum spreader. Stop compressions." She held out her hand, and the Jedi Force threw it at her. She caught it easily with a practiced grip, giving a pained sigh as she searched the sternum for the damaged bone. But this was no time to feel sympathy. Finding where they had cracked it the first time, she drove the metal in, and in seconds there was a crack. Hera pressed it open further, and in seconds the heart was visible, laying in his chest, immobile.

And the wires of the bomb were clearly visible. "Kanan tell me what to cut. Can't tell what makes it go off."

Kanan swallowed. From the corner of his eye he saw that Sabine had stopped working. "Sabine keep going. You're doing fine. Already one out, that's good, it's a good start. Hera, I'll get it out, I've got it from here, I'll use the Force."

"Okay." Hera lifted her hands. "What can I do?"

"Work on the adrenal glands and then get to work on his spine."  
"Time check?"

"Two minutes left. Sabine how are you doing?"

"Okay. Just got the second joint free. Need access to the elbow." She walked over to his elbow, getting to work.

"Wrap them up when done with all." Kanan instructed.

"I will. Hera need help?"

"No, focus on the joints. I've got the first one out of his adrenal gland."  
"Can't tell what you guys are looking at." Sabine said, mainly to herself.  
"That's why we put you on joints. It's easier because there's less muscle and less organ to get around to remove it." Hera said, leaning over the boy's torso, not hesitating as she dug the scalpel through the skin. She pushed her hand downward and felt the cold metal, out of place with the warmth of blood and body heat, pulling it up and shredding cords where it was necessary. "Kanan time check."

"Under a minute. Sabine what else?"  
"Other elbow and both hands."

Kanan grunted in worry. "Got the bomb out. Hera what else do you need to do?"

"Lungs and spine." She muttered, drawing the metal out of the incision.

"I've got spine. You do lungs. Don't patch just remove it. We can focus on stitching later."

"We're not going to finish in time!" Sabine yelled, agitated. "We're taking too long!"  
Hera didn't look up as she moved back to the sternum. "Would you rather keep this inside him? We don't have a choice, we go as long as we need."

"And what about Chopper?"

"We don't have time to argue, so get back to your job!" Hera looked up to see that at some point Sabine had stopped working on him. "Sabine." She warned.

Sabine shook her head and grabbed his hand, feeling at the joints. "Here." She muttered, drawing the scalpel across his knuckles. As she was doing that, Hera got started on the lungs, Kanan beginning the incision to work on the spine. They were almost done, but they also had the problem of restarting the heart, if it even decided to beat again. Hera wouldn't let herself worry about that. She would focus on what needed to be done then and there. She steadied herself as she pushed through skin once again.

Chopper could feel that something was wrong. As he scrolled through walls of code and blocked the machines, he could almost feel something creeping up on him. He figured it was a virus. He also figured he could beat it, or at least outrun it. Chopper considered going back to their ship, but orders were orders, no matter how ominous the virus felt. He had a job to do, and he wouldn't let the humans - and, Twi'lek… and Lasat… - down. He put his protections up and hoped it was enough.

 _Hurry. Hurry… Hurry!_ He thought furiously. He couldn't keep up this evading much longer. There were too many alarms going off, plus the virus was getting closer. Chopper felt it rip his first firewall to shreds and beeped in alarm. This was some strong virus. Would he even realize it when the Jedi had gotten the bomb out?

 _No!_ He decided, and, referring to his internal clock, realized he had been inside the machinery and computers for almost seven whole minutes.

 _If Jedi no take bomb yet… bad at Jedi powers._

He started to make his way into the _Ghost_ 's mainframe, scampering through and around the protections the Empire had set up. They were good: it was definitely slowing him down. He almost got blasted by their own firewall. He beeped in annoyance.

 _Fast… fast… too slow!_ He exclaimed in triumph as he soared through their own domain. He beeped giddily. He'd evaded detection and the virus, again!

 _Empire no beat me!_ He jeered, and was about to draw his mainframe from the ships, when he realized something. It was a sneaking, itching feeling. Something was very wrong. He immediately began to run a malware check, his internal alarm going off after only 37% run. _Empire beat me…!_ Chopper started his anti-virus program, to find that it wasn't starting up.

If a robot could be worried, Chopper would be panicking.

 _Piggy-backer! Uh oh!_ He drew out of the Ghost's mainframe completely, a dull boom ringing out. He didn't realize what it was nor did he care. All he cared about was getting rid of this blasting _virus._ He'd never been infected before but he knew that he had a strong anti-virus system… and now that was down. He couldn't figure out how to fight it but knew that he had to protect his hard drive. At that point it was all that mattered. If that went, he'd be gone. His memories would be wiped, his personality would be changed, all of his systems would crash. The virus would take over if he protected his hard drive, but it was better than fighting it and letting it wipe his hard drive completely.

He beeped an apology to Hera and the others as he began to conserve and redirect power. The first thing to go was his optics. Color turned off, and then his world went dark. He booted down, putting everything he had into protecting his hard drive. He could feel the virus eating away at his systems, taking control. He was worried for the crew because of this, but knew that they could figure it out. They knew that this had been a risk.

The virus continued to eat away at his systems, even shut down. Chopper didn't understand death, but he knew that this could be the last time he shut down. He beeped again, an apology, a goodbye, to the crew, before the virus took over even that. The robot felt himself begin to reboot, but it wasn't his system anymore.

The last thing he could do was keep his hard drive safe.

If robots could hope, he would have been hoping that the crew would get to him, would get him fixed, before it took everything left of him.

 *****If you want a spoiler go to Sakura125! She knows what's going to happen! I apologize in advance to her for all the spam she'll recieve!*****


	8. Death And Ressurection

*****Yes this is my edited chapter. I think it's much better since my system isn't fried! I'm sorry, I had no intention of ever making this so blasted** ** _long_** **! Enjoy!*****

The Force screamed at Kanan to get down, that danger was threatening. He didn't piece together what it was trying to warn him of until it screamed _bomb_! He gasped, his head jerking to the cold and bloody piece of metal that was lying on the table. They had just began to stitch Leo up when the warning came. They'd successfully gotten everything out, the pieces of machinery lying next to the surgical instruments. It took him a second to pinpoint just what would be exploding. "Everyone down!" He shouted when he realized. "Cover your head!" He shut his eyes, ducking under the operating table. The Jedi sensed Hera and Sabine do the same, just as there was a boom that rang out across the room. In reality it was much less than he had expected, nothing more, if anything _less_ than the explosions that Sabine's grenades caused. But if directly on an organ…

He breathed in relief, his head peeking out to check on their surroundings. The medical droid that had Leo on bypass wasn't injured, which soothed some of his tension. They'd still be able to get his heart started.

 _They'd be able to try…_

Kanan forced himself back to the present, which was assessing everything else. "Sabine, are you okay?"

"I'm okay. Not hit."

"Hera, are you alright?"

"I'm fine." She muttered, easing herself up slowly. She was gritting her teeth.

Kanan's worry flared fifth fold. "Are you sure? Are you hit?" Hera was the best medic they had, and if she was out of commision…

"I'll live. I'll patch myself up soon. Let's just focus on Leo." She pulled herself up, and Kanan immediately honed in on the blood that was soaking her sleeve and running down her arm.

"Hera!" It was half an exclaim of alarm, half a warning. Hera decided to focus on the warning part of it.

"I'm _fine_. Use your Force, it'll tell you the same thing. It missed the artery, we need to finish this! Med droid, restart the heart." The droid pulled the bypass out. "Charging 150, med droid, push one of epi."

"Clear," Kanan said, raising his hands into the air. His eyes were still on Hera's arm, scrutinizing the damage.

"Clear." Sabine raised her hands.

"Clear." Hera commanded. There was a dull shock that rang out, and the monitors sprang to life. Hera breathed out in relief, even though Leo was far from out of the woods. "Med droid, begin gluing and stitching of all contusions. Kanan, you use some of the spray to staunch the bleeding. And if you even think about coming near my arm with a pair of tweezers I will make you regret it." She added, glaring at him.

"I don't care!" he said stubbornly, going so far as to cross his arms. "Hera you're hurt and the more you move your arm the more damage it causes!"

"Well I don't care about _that._ "

"Well you _should_ because as far as I'm aware, you need _both_ arms for piloting! Now don't make me come over there!"  
"I'm not going to _lose my arm_ , Kanan. It's not my fault if you need to brush up on trauma wound repercussions."

"I mean in the _short term_ , Hera!"

"Ha, so you admit that you're not a good pilot!"

"I never said that!"  
"Well if you need _me_ so bad in the next few days…" She looked up long enough to smirk at him.

"Hera!" He exclaimed. "I'm not arguing with you on this."

"Neither am I! I'm not the one who's cut open on the table! We need to get him closed before he bleeds out! Sabine, you close the joints. Use the spray and stitches, but they don't need glue."

"Spray?" She asked.

"The bottle with the nozzle on the table. It disinfects and clots."

"Okay, on it." Sabine went to the counter to grab the thread for the stitches.

Kanan looked up. "What can I do?"

"Monitor his vitals with the Force, the med droid is doing the rest." Hera sighed, wincing when she elevated her arm. "You can wake Ezra up now."  
Kanan nodded. "Alright, I will."

"Oh, how is Chopper?"

"I don't know, I think we would have heard something by now if he weren't alright though."

Hera nodded, her eyes going to Leo's monitor. His vitals were a bit unstable, as she suspected they would be. The more the droid worked the higher they climbed. "Actually," Hera looked up at Kanan. "Don't wake Ezra up just yet."

The Jedi nodded, sensing where she was coming from. "You don't want him to see his friend like this."  
She nodded again. "It wouldn't be any help, he'd panic again and we'd be back to square one."

"Alright, we'll wait. How long until the med droid's done?"

"Maybe five, ten minutes."

"After this we all have to sleep. What time is it anyway?"

"Almost 0300 hours." Sabine said, not looking up from her stitching. She was nearly done with the left hand.

Kanan groaned. "Yeah, I'm definitely going to need kaf in the morning."

"I'm going to sleep until 1200." Sabine said.

Hera eyed the both of them. "I want to see no one out of bed until at least 1100, if not later. We take off in three days, we can have tomorrow to ourselves."

"That sounds good. We're all going to need it, especially Leo and Ezra." Kanan looked at his sleeping padawan.

"Leo especially." Hera sighed. "Let's just sedate him until these heal up a little more, keep him on some morphine too."

Kanan looked up. "We only have 8 units, that'll be gone within the week if we use it up on him."

Hera folded her arms, looking directly at him. "You had better take that back. He just had his _sternum_ cracked open, his lungs and heart messed with. We are giving him as much morphine as he needs! He is going to be in _agony_ when he wakes up. So we give him morphine, and oxycodone, and whatever else he needs. We restock on morphine, and everything else. I am not going to let him suffer like that. If you don't like that we're finally using our dusty medicine, then you can take a hike."

The Jedi looked up at her, anger flashing in his eyes. "You and I both know how much it all costs."  
"And you and I both know how many favors we have and how many credits we store away for medical needs."

"Which _isn't_ a lot!"

"But it's enough."

"For what a bandage?"

Sabine turned to him, an irritated look on her face. "Kanan shut up! You and Hera fighting isn't helping any of this, let alone Leo! Hera is medic, we listen to her. She knows way more than you do. And I'm trying to focus but can't with you guys fighting like that." She glared down at her work, stitching faster.

"Don't talk to me like that." Kanan snapped.

"As soon as you start to grow up, sure!"  
Hera sighed before either of them to respond. "Okay, that's enough, both of you. We're all exhausted, it's been a long day. But no more fighting. From _any_ of us. Myself included. We just focus on Leo right now."

"I'm not the one who started it." Sabine muttered.

"Neither am I!" Kanan exclaimed, turning to Hera with an accusing glare. He quickly looked away and down. "I'll get the morphine." He mumbled.

"I'll hang the bag and get the IVs started." Hera said, turning the to the drawers with the IVs, pulling three out.

"Why three?" Sabine asked, still looking down.

"One for morphine, one for blood and saline, and one for pn."

"What's pn?" She sounded confused.

"Parenteral nutrition. Everything he needs to stay alive. Probably much better stuff than he's got out on the streets. It'll speed his recovery."

Kanan said to himself, "Why haven't we bought a crash cart yet? It would save drawer space."

Sabine looked up at him and glared. "Did _you_ really just ask that?"

Kanan opened his mouth to retort.

" _No_ fighting, from either of you!" Hera reminded, forcing both of them into silence. Kanan complied grumpily, while Sabine continued her assigned work. Hera got to work starting the IVs.

It took them another half an hour to completely close Leo and get him started on the drips. His vitals were stable and he was healing rather well. Exhausted, Kanan leaned his weight on the bed. "We should probably change these sheets and bedding." He said to himself. "Do you know how to when the person is still in the bed?" He addressed the question to Hera, who sighed, rubbing her forehead tiredly.

"We're _definitely_ going to change these sheets and clothes, would you honestly leave him all bloody?"

"No," Kanan admitted.

"As for your question, I don't need you to help me with it."

"Does that mean I can go to bed now?" Sabine asked, bags already forming under her eyes.

"Yes, go get some sleep Sabine. You need it, and you earned it. Good job today. I'm impressed."

The girl shrugged. "Thanks, just glad I could help out."

Hera turned to the bloodied med droid. "Med droid, wash, recharge, and then power down." It immediately turned and went back to its storage closet, the light going out of its eyes. "Good night Sabine, by the way." Hera added, noticing the girl throwing her scrubs into the biohazard bin.

"Night Hera." She mumbled, walking out of the room. The door shut with a hiss.

Kanan kept thinking how long of a day it had been, for all of them.

 _It was just supposed to be a supply run… turned into some explosion and the Empire taking control of Leo… I've only known him for what twelve hours? And how many times have we needed to save his life? I had better check if Ezra is okay._ He noticed the Twi'lek staring. "We'd better change these sheets, before I wake Ezra up."

Hera shook her head. "Just let him sleep for the rest of the night, carry him to his room. He needs his sleep, too. Waking him up would only cause him to worry and stay awake the rest of the night."

"Alright, I'll help you before I take him." Kanan sighed, hardly able to form a cohesive thought, his eyes dry and most likely red. Hera pulled fresh gloves out of the box, and grabbed two larges for the Jedi, before ridding herself of the bloodstained scrubs. It was nice to be able to, to rid herself of the actions that had been done by the Empire, to rid herself of the innocent boy's blood. Slipping the gloves on she held out the larger ones to Kanan. He shook his head.

"Lay them on the table, I'm changing out of this." He gestured to his shirt and gloves, both stained red.

"You didn't put scrubs on?"

"You think there was time?" Kanan retorted, peeling the gloves off, before carefully removing his shirt and also putting it into the bin.

The Twi'lek sighed. "Good point." Hera looked at the biohazard container. "We're going to need to empty that out soon."

"It's almost overflowing now." Kanan muttered, opening a closet.

"What are you doing?"

"What do you think? Putting on a new shirt, it's freezing in there." He slipped it on, before pulling out two new large gloves from the box.

"I just got you some." Hera reminded.

"What? You did?" He looked over at the table, to realize that he had.

"You're exhausted, love."

"I guess so." Kanan shrugged. "I'll just use these."

Hera walked over to the same closet, pulling it open.

"What are you getting?" he mused.

"New bedspread, sheet, and clothes. Do you think mediums will do?"

"It should, he doesn't look that big."

Hera nodded in agreement and pulled what she needed out. "Do you remember how to change sheets?"

"I already answered that…" Kanan trailed off.

"We're both exhausted…" Hera murmured. "The faster we get this done the better."

The two of them silently got to work, Kanan going to the sink and filling up a large bowl of warm water, pulling out a new sponge and a couple of towels. While he was going that Hera got Leo down to just his underwear, throwing the bloodied clothes into the biohazard bin. "Are you ready?" She asked.

"Yeah, I'll take him now." As he was saying that Kanan put the bowl and clothes into the area they had designated as the patient shower, pushing aside the curtain. He walked over to Leo and picked him up, with relative ease. He was much lighter than he looked, most likely from malnutrition. With a grunt none the less, he carried the boy into the shower and pulled the curtain closed, giving them at least some privacy. Even though Leo was asleep he knew that he'd be embarrassed when he woke up to find they'd washed and changed him. The Jedi crumpled a towel they had in the shower and put it underneath his head, before pulling the sponge out of the water and getting to work washing him.

As he worked he could hear Hera changing the sheets. She was definitely efficient, if not more efficient than he was at it. _That's why I clean the patients._ He thought to himself. He made sure to wash Leo's underarms, Force only knew how long he'd bathed while on the streets, and judging from the smell of him before he'd come in, he guessed it had been about a week, maybe even two or more. But he wasn't about to judge him. He'd been on the streets himself at one point.

"I'm done, whenever you're ready just pull him into bed. I'm going to sleep." Hera called as the door opened before her.

"Okay, I'll see you in the morning." Kanan got no response, which he didn't mind. Grabbing an old bottle of shampoo from the corner, he moved to Leo's head and squirted some into his hands, running the green glop through his hair. It was designed to attract dandruff, grease and sweat, and dirt and draw it from the scalp, making it effective and fast. It was naturally made, so it kept it rather cheap. The shampoo turning brown, Kanan washed it out with some of the water, before running it through again just to be sure he'd gotten everything. Nothing more stuck to it.

It had been awhile since Kanan had cared for a patient like he was tending to Leo. Most didn't stay long enough, or were able to clean themselves. It made him feel like he was finally able to do some real help again, like he was finally able to make a difference, be useful for once.

His head pounded in exhaustion, and he had to channel some of the Force to relieve the pain. It relaxed him to be with it, just having it there. He felt his padawan's signature, flickering like a candle, but still strong. Kanan put the bottle on the ground, grabbing the deodorant and spraying Leo's underarm's with it, before slipping the new shirt onto him. Goosebumps had risen all over his skin.

"I know you're cold. We'll warm you up soon, just stay asleep, okay? We're taking good care of you and you need to rest." Kanan took off his underwear and did some hasty cleaning, before pulling on new underwear and pants. Force only knew how long he'd had them on. :Sorry," He mumbled. That done, he gathered the boy in his arms and walked over to the bed, laying him down and pulling the sheet over him. He sighed when he realized it was closing in on 0330 hours.

He dove deeper into the Force, realizing that his padawan wasn't sleeping as deeply as he thought, nearly awake. _Probably because he's on the floor and it's freezing in here._ He thought. The Jedi let out a yawn, scooping Ezra up fireman style, letting his head rest against his back. As Kanan walked into the hallway, he felt something flicker through the Force. It was the breath of warning, just a feeling that something was wrong. He paused his walking and immediately blocked Ezra from it, just hoping that he hadn't felt it as it began. It was always a rude awakening when he was woken up by a feeling of danger, and he had been through enough during the day as it was.

He groaned audibly. "Can't I just get some sleep before the next accident on this blasted ship!" He walked faster, hoping to put Ezra in the safety of his room before, if worse came to worst, they were attacked.

 _Force forbid…_

He hoped that the feeling would go away, resolve itself, but it only got stronger. They were nearly at Ezra and Zeb's room, and Ezra was continuing to- _stubbornly-_ fight for alertness, pushing confusion and worry through the Force. That added to the sense of imminent danger and lack of sleep nearly made Kanan go into a dead faint. He steeled himself, letting the Force gather around him to hold him up, only hoping that he could get to his own room without falling.

There was a flicker of shadow along the wall, a much larger shape than his size. Although the sudden obstruction didn't startle him, the Force reminding him that Zeb was not the threat, it was still a relief to realize. He felt irritation well inside him. "Where the hell have you been! Leo arrested, we needed to do surgery, there was an _explosion on the ship,_ and Ezra nearly had a panic attack!"

Zeb shrugged, like Leo wasn't his problem. "I was sleeping, I fell asleep after the meeting. Where was the explosion, I didn't hear any alarms going off, that's probably why I slept through it."

"It was small, in the med bay."

"So that's why I wasn't there. And no one woke me up. Do I need to remind you how late it is? I'm usually sleeping at this hour anyway."

Kanan sighed in frustration. "Could you take Ezra to your room? There's something I need to sort out."

"You take him, I need to head to the fresher. That's why I was up."

"You can go in a couple of minutes, just get into your room with him and _stay there_ until I give the all clear. I know you can hold it until then." The Jedi snapped, already shifting Ezra on his shoulder to transfer him over to the Lasat.

"What's going on Kanan?" Zeb questioned, going serious at his tone.

"The Force is warning me of danger on this ship, but I can't pinpoint where it's coming from because I'm so blasted tired."

Ezra groaned, shifting.

Kanan readjusted and tightened his grip on him.

"Le-o…" He groaned.

"Is fine, go back to sleep, kid. It's over, everyone's alright." Kanan soothed, sending waves of exhaustion and calm at his padawan. Ezra began to relax, settling back into sleep. Kanan sighed in relief. It always worried him when Ezra was on edge. The boy was just settling back to sleep, the memory of him talking to Kanan nearly all but forgotten already, when something stronger than his master's waves of peace cut through the tendrils. A dark, cold warning. Danger, right around the corner. Master and padawan jerked up, adrenaline coursing through them. Ezra connected with the Force, still groggy but cohesive enough for the danger to send him into a near panic.

"Is it something with Leo?!" He demanded, rolling off of Kanan and landing somewhat steadily on his feet.

"Whoa, whoa whoa. Slow down. Ezra, _Ezra_ , Leo is _fine_. He's safe, he's healthy. He's in the clear, he'll make a full recovery now, I promise. We need to focus on whatever this thing is on the ship, alright?"

Ezra took a shaky breath, letting his master's words wash over him. He was telling the truth, he could feel it. It helped him relax a little. "Okay," He nodded, his shoulders slumping, able to breathe easier.

Until another wave of danger swamped the both of them, turning the air much more solid than he was comfortable breathing in. The danger was there. They had to face it now, weapons or not. Ezra stiffened, and Kanan instinctively moved slightly in front of him.

"Ey you bucket of bolts, you're supposed to be recharging!" Zeb complained, looking at the corner where Chopper had appeared. Ezra squinted, trying to make out what looked off about the robot.

"Kanan?" He asked.

"Ezra, be careful." his master warned, knowing there was something wrong with it.

Zeb looked at them incredulously. "What do you mean be careful? It's just Chopper. It's not like he can do anything to us, 'cept maybe taze us." He scoffed when he realized. "What, you think _Chop_ is the danger?"

Ezra spoke up again, insistant. "What does it mean when his eye is red…?"

It happened in a second. Less than a second, with no time for thought, no time to process what was going on, no time to hide.

The Force shrieked a warning, one that only Kanan could make out in time. " _Get down_!" He yelled, as Chopper beeped.

 _Kill!_ As he beeped, he let out a blaster ray.

Kanan pushed Ezra to the ground as he shouted his own warning, covering his padawan's body. For one second, then two, and more, as time blended together, there was no pain, and Kanan was relieved. It had missed. No one was hurt. They would fight, and they would get out without injury. They'd been lucky, again.

The Force shifted. There was something very wrong, much more so than the warning. He looked up out of habit as Zeb gave a half pain filled, half horrified yell, his face turning to the Lasat. At first, he couldn't tell what had happened. Everything looked normal. Zeb looked fine. Or maybe it was just his brain refusing to process what he was seeing. Kanan found himself tightening his grip on Ezra and slipping a hand over the boy's eyes, even as he began to squirm in protest.

Chopper had blasted Zeb's hand off to the thumb, and it wasn't cauterized. Blood was freely weeping to the ground, splattering the metal with dull dripping sounds. It was fast, as fast as the water came out of the showerheads in the freshers.

 _He'll need a tourniquet._ Kanan thought to himself, almost calmly, more in a daze. He needed to snap back into it if he wanted to pull them out of this.

"Oh _kriff_!" Zeb shouted, in clear pain and shock. "Kriff, my hand! It's gone!"

Ezra gasped, jerking in surprise underneath Kanan's body.

" _Hera_!" Kanan forced out, putting as much demand into his voice as possible. He immediately heard her door open, her footsteps. Chopper spun around, toward the noise. "Hera watch out!" He blurted, lunging toward the malfunctioning bot. He slammed into it just as Hera came into view.

"What's going _on_!" She demanded, taking cover behind one of the ladders to get to the gunnery.

"Virus!" Kanan responded. "Shot his hand off!"

Hera was about to ask whose hand, but heard Zeb's swearing. Her mouth dropped open in realization, and for a moment, she was frozen.

The commotion was enough to draw Sabine out from her room.

"Sabine back in your room lock the door!" Hera shouted, dodging to the back of Chopper as Kanan was fighting with it.

"Get on top of him!" Ezra yelled.

"I need my lightsaber!" Kanan exclaimed.

"What's going on!" Sabine shouted back.

" _Back in your room!_ " Kanan yelled. Instead of her door closing, he heard footsteps racing down the hall, and another door opening. He could sense her grabbing the lightsaber from his room. _I should really hide that._ He thought to himself as her signature drew closer.

"One of you distract Chopper, I'm gonna throw this to Kanan!" Sabine shouted, part of the saber hilt sticking out past the turn.

"Hey Chopper!" The voice came from Ezra. Kanan turned to his padawan, to see a trail of blood from Zeb's severed limb, making a clear path to the medbay. The severed part of his hand was lying in a pool of blood on the ground.

 _When did he leave? Not important!_

Ezra was standing in the middle of the hallway, smirking at Chopper. "What do you call a robot with no brain? A hunk of metal!" The blaster rotated to him. Kanan whirled around, holding up his hand for the lightsaber.

Sabine chucked it, and Kanan pulled it toward him with the Force. Without having time to decide otherwise, he aimed for the area beneath Chopper's head and above his body frame. If struck with a lightsaber it would make him short-circuit, shutting even the virus off completely. On the other hand, it might also fry the systems beyond repair…

 _Do it._ The Force urged him.

As Chopper's blaster began to ignite, Kanan swung the lightsaber. It was a dead hit, electricity sparking, a sizzling, _zz_ sound ringing out from somewhere inside what used to be Chopper.

And then there was silence.

 *******Yes I did just do that. Okay, I'm getting kind of close to the beginning chapter here, I want to do a poll. Should I turn this story into a 2-parter or make it very long? Also, HUGE shout out to MelodyRose4 (my FAVORITE reviewer and newest author here!) and CassTurn for consistently reviewing my chapters! I really appreciate you guys!*****


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